


Six Feet Under

by Rozjozbrod



Category: Agents of SHIELD - Fandom, Marvel, Pushing Daisies, fitzsimmons - Fandom
Genre: Alternate Universe - Pushing Daisies Fusion, Angst, Childhood Friends, Eventual Happy Ending, F/M, First Kiss, Fluff, Mutual Masturbation, Mutual Pining, Resolved Sexual Tension, Smut, Temporary Character Death, Then, Unresolved Sexual Tension, very temporary
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-10
Updated: 2018-03-14
Packaged: 2019-03-03 05:25:03
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 14
Words: 35,879
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13334391
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rozjozbrod/pseuds/Rozjozbrod
Summary: Ever since he was a young boy, Leopold James Fitz has had the uncanny ability to bring life back to dead things with just one touch. But the rules of his gift are strict: the dearly undeparted can only stick around for sixty seconds before balance in the universe has to be restored, or someone else will die. And though his first touch brings life, his second touch brings certain death. But when Jemma Anne Simmons, the childhood love of his life, is murdered, he can't resist bringing her back for keeps--the rules be damned.





	1. A Sheffield Miracle

**Author's Note:**

> Despite a dark premise, the show on which this fic was based is bright, colorful, and hilariously narrated. I tried my very best to incorporate those vivacious qualities in my writing, and it turned into a wonderful stylistic experience that I genuinely enjoyed. I hope you do to!

Like all uncivilized children, young Leopold James Fitz of Glasgow, Scotland enjoyed making all kinds of mischief, and among these were playing with his dog, bringing mudpies into the house, and protesting going to sleep at a reasonable hour. At the tender age of six he moved with his mother and father to a small town in the midlands of England called Sheffield, and he wasted no time in terrorizing the new neighbors with his cries of joy at being alive and well-- as every normal six year old did and should do. He was, however, not at all a normal boy and he found it out in the most peculiar of ways. He was ten years, three months, twelve days, and twenty hours old, and chasing his dog across the street when it happened. His dog, Dopey, was three years, two months, seven days, and three hours old-- and unfortunately not a minute older. For Dopey ran across the busy street without looking both ways (as Fitz’s mother had always told them to do) and was hit by a speeding ice cream truck and killed. 

Fitz kneeled by his dog’s body, ignoring the honks of bottlenecked cars, and stroked Dopey’s furry face as sad as a ten year old could humanly be. Then miraculously, at Fitz’s touch Dopey stood up like nothing had happened and crossed the street again, reaching the other side safely. Startled and impressed, Leopold James Fitz looked at his hands and realized immediately that he was a normal boy no longer-- his hands had the power to bring life back to dead things, and for a brief moment he reveled in his new superpower. Running off to join his dog in a field of sunflowers across the street, he was so enamored with himself that he didn’t notice the squirrel falling out of the tree behind him precisely one minute later. 

After his thirst for play had been sufficiently quenched, Fitz ran home behind his dog, and blushed when his next door neighbor waved excitedly at him. Jemma Anne Simmons was ten years, two months, fifteen days, four hours, and three minutes old and perhaps the most wonderful thing that Fitz had ever seen. She wore bright colored cable-knit jumpers, had tea parties with her stuffed animals in the overgrown garden next to her house, and smiled so widely that anyone within a ten kilometer radius could easily see that her two front teeth were missing. At this exact moment, little Jemma was stargazing with her father in their front yard with her brand new telescope. Fitz hurried into his kitchen, where his own father was sitting at the kitchen table and fiddling with spare mechanical parts, looking extremely concentrated in his work. Fitz was about to open his mouth and pronounce his newfound gift, when his father tragically blanched and face-planted into the kitchen table from a sudden heart attack. Blue faced and drooling, the old man was dead as a doornail but Fitz, electrified with his powers, merely pressed his index finger to his father’s forehead and, like Dopey, his father sat up straight and exclaimed that he must have briefly fallen asleep. Then, exactly one minute later, his father’s eyes widened with shock because out their window, the eternally happy Jemma Anne Simmons was crying, and her father was laying on the grass, after having suffered a fatal (and incredibly sudden) brain aneurysm. 

Thus, Leopold James Fitz learned the first rule of handling his gift; precisely one minute after saving someone, balance in the universe had to be restored and someone else in the near vicinity would have to die. Fitz was heartbroken when he realized the cost of his father’s life had been that of Jemma’s father. That night, he settled into bed feeling confused and saddened, with the emergency lights of the ambulance next door flashing through his curtains and painting his room red and blue and red and blue. Quietly, his father bent down to kiss his forehead goodnight and young Fitz felt three large tears squeeze out of his eyes as he savored the kind touch of his father. But as soon as his lips touched Fitz’s skin, the man turned blue and cold and fell to the ground with an almighty crash-- dead. He could not be revived again by Fitz’s multiple attempts to become a human defibrillator. 

With tears running down his little face, Fitz learned that the second rule of handling his gift was even harder than the first; first touch would bring life, while the second would bring death. Fitz looked at his dog, Dopey, from across the room and a tear leaked down his cheek when he realized he would never again be able to stroke Dopey’s furry little face. It was a great responsibility on the shoulders of a boy who was only ten years, three months, twelve days, twenty two hours, and thirty four minutes old. And when the happy yellow sun came up the next morning, Leopold James Fitz was almost another boy entirely and for the first time ever, he did not wish to play outside.


	2. Kiss the Girl

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A quick lil time jump!

Leopold James Fitz was seventeen years old, four months, nineteen days, three hours, and twelve minutes old at his fist high school party. He stood in the corner of the room, avoiding all kinds of social and physical contact, looking like a complete fish out of water and hating every beat of the music throbbing in his ears. Since his unfortunate childhood, young Fitz had decided to simplify his over-complicated life by withdrawing into himself like a hermit crab and never forming any sort of meaningful connection with anything that had a heartbeat. Living organisms were so fickle; one minute they were alive, and another dead. As a result, to the watchful eyes of a mean teenaged public, Fitz was cripplingly socially awkward and wholly uninterested in any sort of festivity. On the inside, however, young Leopold James Fitz was a hopeless romantic with an ooey gooey heart and was aching for the day when someone would finally ask more of him than help on physics homework. As of yet, that moment had never come.

At this moment in time, Jemma Anne Simmons was seventeen years, three months, seventeen days, eight hours, and forty-six minutes old, and was not worried at all about the alcohol she was consuming. She spun in the middle of the room like a top, red solo cup in hand, and smiled as brightly as thirty thousand blue main sequence stars. Young Fitz was entranced, gobsmacked in the way a theatre-aficionado watched a beautifully-unfurling opera for the first time. Jemma was wearing a bright floral patterned shirt, starkly contrasted to the dark blue hoodie that Fitz wore, and she talked excitedly and kindly to all who passed by her. They were on opposite sides of an impossible social chasm, with her at the top and him somewhere in the mud at her sparkly shoes. Fitz had scarcely said a word to her since her father’s untimely demise, but still thought that she was the most wonderful thing in the whole world. He would probably die with that secret hidden deep within his chest. 

Fitz was so wrapped up in his tragic thoughts that when some unfortunate party-goer collided into his shoulder and pushed him forward, he stumbled to the ground with all the grace of a duck-footed tin-man on drugs. Sprawled on the ground and smelling of spilled beer, young Fitz was embarrassed beyond comprehension when he heard his peers laughing. Then, through the din of teenage hormone-fueled unkindness, he heard the sweet and chipper voice of the most incredible girl in the universe. 

“Are you alright?” She asked.

The young Fitz was flabbergasted as he looked up and saw a perfectly manicured hand reaching down to him. Her nails were bright pink, like bubblegum, and there were faint sparkles on her cheeks from party glitter. He reached up and accepted her help, but he was unsteady from being so close to her and she was wobbly from one too many sips of peach schnapps. The result was the two of them pressed sinfully close to each other, grabbing the other for balance. Fitz stiffened as her unsteady hand grabbed his butt, but she soon recovered her faculties and stepped back with a smile. Watching her, he trembled slightly. She smelled like peppermint and spring breezes and he was vaguely worried that his eyes just might have turned into cartoon hearts.

Young Jemma’s golden-brown eyes turned wide when she recognized him. “Fitz?”

He smiled brightly, possibly for the first time since he was ten years, three months, twelve days, and twenty two hours old. “Hi, Jemma.”

Jemma was bubbly and tactile, and folded him into a hug as tightly as she could. “I’ve never seen you at a party before.”

“I’ve never been.” He told her, but he was thinking that if this was what all parties were like, then he’d been wasting his time playing video games and sulking.

“What?” She yelled, struggling to be heard over the loud music. She scrunched her face up and put her hand to her ear, and Fitz smiled for the second time that night at her seussical posture. 

“I said that I’ve never been!” He repeated himself, louder this time. 

“I can’t hear you!” Jemma giggled, cheerfully. “Come here.”

She laced her fingers through his and pulled him from the dance floor, and Fitz wondered briefly if the entire room had darkened and if a spotlight had dropped directly onto her shoulders as she weaved through the party, or if he’d just lost all shreds of sanity in the last five minutes. He suspected that it was the latter, because not ten minutes later, Jemma Anne Simmons and Leopold James Fitz were sitting in a quiet corner of the party, catching up on seven years, one month, two days, and sixteen hours of wasted time. The light from the outside street lights reflected off of Jemma’s face making her look like a moonbeam on Earth, and it sparkled off of her bright smile as she talked. Giggling happily, she touched his hand and the feeling almost burned his skin, and soon a chorus of harmonizing sopranos filled the space between his ears and all he could think about was how lovely she was. His eyes fluttered downwards and came to rest on her soft pink lips, and he gulped. 

She looked at him funnily then, reading him like a book. “Are you thinking about kissing me, Fitz?”

In exactly one second, Fitz managed to blush from the tips of his ears to his pinky toes, and stuttered trying to tell her that he wasn’t. But the words didn’t come out exactly right, and she was looking at him with a vaguely amused look on her face like she was enjoying watching him struggle. “Okay, maybe.” He managed, wondering if steam was coming out of his ears and simultaneously trying to calculate the best escape route from their windowside nook. Jumping out the nice double paned window and running across the lawn into the night, never to be seen again, was probably his best option. He was almost out of his seat, ready to spring, when Jemma’s hand was on his again and he felt the now familiar burning sensation of her skin on his. 

“Because if you were, I’d like that.” She stated, blinking her big eyes at him. 

“Would you?” He went immobile, awkwardly balancing one leg on the nook beside her and the other prepped for speedy escape. All of the air left his lungs in three milliseconds when he looked at her, and realized that she was serious. A variety of choice swear words crossed his mind and he wondered if his whole body had just turned to jelly; it certainly felt like it. 

“Always thought you’d be my first kiss.” Jemma reasoned, not looking embarrassed at all. “Boy next door and all. It’s very cliché.”

“First? Your first. . . you mean to say that. . . I mean, yeah, I think that--Ummph!” His train wreck of a sentence was thankfully cut short when her pink lips found his and Jemma Anne Simmons and Leopold James Fitz shared their first kiss in a room that was decorated with unfashionable wallpaper and lined with doilies. 

They bumped heads. That was, at least, the first thought that crossed his dizzy mind. The second thought was that he might have just ascended his astral plane, because in what unholy universe would Jemma be kissing him? As much as he enjoyed it, he pulled back and blinked to clear his head, sure that he had overstepped some boundary. His lips tingled with her light and his heart seemed to be trying to escape his rib cage at an unyielding pace. There was no way that she was real. 

“Sorry.” He apologized. He shook his head and felt his blond curls flop around his ears. “I shouldn’t-”

“Fitz?” Jemma asked, her voice high. He managed a look at her now, through his eyelashes, and saw that for all of her unembarrassed talk of first kisses earlier, her cheeks were bright pink. “Would you, uh, do that again?”

He gulped. He thought he had misheard. He thought she was crazy. Then he thought that he should probably stop thinking, and just kiss her like she was asking him to. So he leaned in slowly, brushing their lips together just a little bit, with a horribly pounding heart. The smallest touch sent his whole body ablaze as their lips grazed, and everything inside him vibrated at the same high pitched frequency like he was a tuning fork hit upon a star. He pulled back just a millimeter from her lips, and responded. “Okay.”

At first, it was sweet and awkward, both of them unpracticed and fumbling as they tried to wrap their minds around the new sensation. Then it began to rise like the sun in the east and both of them relaxed into each other. Jemma kissed Fitz with a laser intensity and single-minded focus, brushing her tongue across his, and it was all Fitz could do to keep up and meet her kiss for kiss. She was soft as velvet and she tasted vaguely like peaches and vanilla and it was easily the most intoxicated young Fitz had been all night. When he wound his hand in her brown hair and pulled her closer, Jemma made a noise in between a sigh and a moan that Fitz thought might just kill him. She was sucking on his lower lip and pulling him closer to him by the belt loops and God, Fitz could scarcely believe that he hadn’t exploded yet. Everything was heightened; he could hear cars driving down the block a whole street away and he could see the flickering street lights outside through his closed eyes. He pulled on her lips with his teeth, and readjusted himself so that she was reclining low on the window seat and that he was braced on top of her, pressed in as close as he could be. Her tongue was in his mouth and leaving him breathless and boneless and though his cognizant brain had lost all ability to function, the rest of his body acted without conscious thought and he ground against her as she sighed into his mouth. He was utterly spellbound. They broke apart for one fraction of one second, and through half-lidded eyes Fitz could see Jemma’s chest rising and falling rapidly before she reached up and wound her fingers in his curls and nuzzled her face against his cheek. The chemistry singeing between the two of them was undeniable. 

“Fitz.” She sighed, in a half-gone tone that was drunk with hormones and relaxation. 

Almost giddy with happiness, he jumped back in with all the enthusiasm of an olympic diver doing the synchronized gaynor or a lifetime. They carried on for what felt like several sunlit days, and Fitz wondered if rainbows and butterflies and flowers were sprouting from nothingness all around, because there had never been anything quite so poetic to happen in his whole life than Jemma Anne Simmons kissing him with her whole heart and an open mouth, under the blue light of a British streetlamp. He could do this forever, he realized, and he’d very much like to.

\-----

Four hours, twelve minutes, and eighteen seconds later, young Leopold James Fitz was walking back down the familiar road back to his house at an ungodly hour of the morning, following Jemma like a confused duckling and marveling in the sheer number of stars in the sky that he had never noticed before. Jemma was equally giddy; she spun around and grabbed his hand, walking backwards one purple Doc Marten-ed foot after another, just so that they never had to stop looking at each other. Her lips were still swollen and pink from all of their stolen kisses and she talked like a love song with every word; Fitz was utterly gobsmacked that his cursed life had been allowed to have such a bright light in it. They reached her doorstep first, and in one fluid movement she had wrapped her arms around his neck and was looking at him with big eyes. “You’ll call?” She inquired of him. 

“I will.” He promised. 

That satisfied her, and Jemma slowly leaned in for what would be their last kiss ever. It was brief and chaste, but they had been kissing one another virtually all night and Fitz hardly protested to the weight of her leaving him so quickly. They had forever, after all. 

“Goodnight, Fitz.” Jemma opened her door and leaned her beautiful face against the doorframe.

“Goodnight, Jemma.” He told her.

He walked across the street and into his own house floating approximately ten thousand and fifty two feet high on a cotton candy cloud of contentment, and opened the door with a smile and a sigh. His brain was firing with the same one-track thought over and over—one of brown eyes and honeyed lips and the name Jemma Anne Simmons. 

His mother, a squat woman with flyaway blonde curls, was seemingly fast asleep on the couch when he came in. But little did young Fitz know that his mother was not in fact asleep, but wholly and completely dead after having suffered a fatal asthma attack about two hours earlier (at the time when Fitz’s tongue had been tasting the salty sweet skin of Jemma’s neck). Quietly leaning down to kiss his mother’s forehead goodnight, she suddenly sat up like she’d been electrified and chuckled at how late it was, and did Leopold have a good night? And why did he look so sad all of a sudden? Did something happen? 

Heart catching in his chest, Leopold James Fitz, at only seventeen years, four months, nineteen days, eight hours, and six minutes old could only mutter that he was sorry and that he loved her, before he reached out and touched his mother again on the arm. This time, his mother collapsed back onto the couch and didn't stir again. Tragically, fogging a mirror could no longer be included on her resumé. Where a few minutes previous, the young Fitz’s heart had been so light, it was now weighed down with the same darkness that he’d known since he was ten years, three months, twelve days, and twenty two hours old. But he had learned his lesson the first time; he wouldn’t trade his mother’s life for that of Jemma’s mother-- nor the life of anyone else. Some things had to stay dead, no matter how much it hurt. And it hurt like he had been strung up from the inside, and cut through by a thousand knives. 

The house was cold and blue and empty. The white curtains billowed in a cool draft of brisk air and they looked like little ghosts as they moved. Winter had come in a matter of minutes, it seemed. Across the street and through the front window, Fitz could see the light in Jemma’s room turn off for the night and he felt very much like she was living another life entirely: one with first kisses and hand holding and whispered forevers. Though she was only a breath away, she was living on another planet: one that he’d had a fleeting glimpse of in a brilliant flash of color. But it had faded like mist between his fingers and the simple and tragic fact was this: at seventeen years, four months, nineteen days, eight hours, and twelve minutes old, the sad young Leopold James Fitz knew that he’d never be able to see Jemma Anne Simmons again. He broke his own heart in half with his two hands at the thought. Numb and yearning for a hug that no one could give him, Fitz slid to the floor and put his head in his hands and cried.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As always, I love comments and kudos! Swing by @drdrdrfitzsimmons for updates!


	3. A Young Man

At this moment in time, Leopold James Fitz was exactly twenty four years, eight months, thirteen days, four hours, and thirty seven minutes old and he didn’t know if he’d been more grossed out in his whole life, which was saying something considering his life experiences. An unfortunate stream of events had led him to this moment, and he was currently second-guessing all of them. 

After the tragic death of his mother, and since he had still been a minor, the young Leopold James Fitz had been sent to live with his closest next of kin, who just so happened to be the one-eyed sister of his late father in the Scottish highlands. Torn from all he knew and feeling entirely responsible for his misery (and admittedly, a little afraid of the eyepatch), the young boy had hurriedly finished his studies in Inverness and had promptly left for university in the United States of America, leaving all of Britain behind for a brand new start. 

And if seventeen year old Fitz was antisocial, university-aged Fitz was a glorified hermit, only venturing from his room through the temptation of snacks or the threat of disembowelment. He surrounded himself in more books than his tiny dorm room could hold, and traveled to all sorts of fantastical places all within the confines of his prison cell-sized room. Books were adventures in leather and paper binding, and if he was so cursed by the cosmos that his very touch would end lives in this plane of existence then he decided that he would live through other means. Thus he grew into a very intellectual young man, full of well-rounded opinions and fun facts. Though, sadly, he had no one to share them with but the moon— and the moon was horrible at carrying conversation.

Until Leopold James Fitz turned twenty, he had successfully made zero friends since he had moved, and was quite proud of himself. On the night of his birthday he walked the dirty streets of New York City, in between puffs of humid Subway smoke and hot-dog vendors, with an almost jovial spring to his step. The lights from the neon signs reflected on the puddles of rainwater on the streets, and he jumped in one just to see the color refract around his shoes. With a sigh and a half-smile, a strange noise suddenly reached his ears and he turned his eyes skyward to see a man running on the roof of a nearby building. 

About twenty feet behind the first, another man followed with slightly less steady steps. It wasn’t long before the second man’s feet slipped. In horrible slow motion, he fell spectacularly to the ground at Fitz’s feet and the breaking of his vital bones sounding not unlike the cracks of a new glow stick as it shone for the first time. Fitz, startled, forgot for one and a half seconds that he alone had the gift of life and death in his hands, and reached down to check the pulse of the fallen man. The poor boy nearly jumped out of his skin when the man straightened, arms still twisted at unnatural angles, and began to run away again, confused and lopsided like a marionette puppet with half-cut strings. Hurriedly touching the man on the back, so as not to damn anyone else, Fitz watched him fall to the ground and back to death where he belonged. Grimacing like he’d eaten a spoiled tomato and shaking the ugly feeling of his powers from his body, Fitz was glad that no one in the bustling city had seen him. 

Then he remembered the first man on the roof, and glanced back up to see the ecstatic fresh-face of a young man around his age smiling brightly at him from twenty feet up. “Mate.” He yelled down. “We’re going to be good pals.”

Fitz had no intention of being pals with anyone in the whole world, but the new man slid down a drainpipe and landed unevenly on the ground before Fitz could even think about running from the scene. It was quite the superhero landing, Fitz decided, almost impressed. The new man held out his hand. “Lance Hunter. Enchanté.”

Confused beyond measure, but perhaps wanting to feel some sort of human connection, Fitz reached out and shook. 

It was exactly four years, six months, eight days, seven hours, and thirteen minutes later, and Leopold James Fitz knew Lance Hunter better than he knew anyone in the whole world—which still wasn’t saying much because Fitz knew literally no one else. Even still, Lance Hunter was familiar to him and bizarre to boot. He had hair that was buzzed down almost to the scalp, and frequently wore offensive t-shirts under his weathered leather jackets. His smile was bright, albeit a tad unhinged, and he called everyone ‘mate’ and clapped Fitz so hard on the shoulders when he was in a good mood that he shook all of Fitz’s screws loose. He was a bounty hunter for hire with a bloodhound’s sense for money, and after discovering Fitz’s miraculous power to bring people back to life, he decided it would be much easier to solve murders if he could just ask the murder victim who’d done it. They split the money fifty-fifty every time, but sometimes, like now, the money was the least important thing in the universe.

On a slab in the morgue, a murder victim sat up straight. He had a bullet hole in the middle of his forehead, making him look more like a donut than a human being. Fitz and Hunter both grimaced at the unfortunate sight. 

“Where am I?” The man asked immediately, unaware that he was part pastry and that they could see straight through him like a peephole. “Why am I naked? Who are you? Is this the afterlife?”

“Forty seconds, Hunter.” Fitz reminded him, eyes on his watch. 

“Yes. Right. Okay, mate, who killed you? Was it that big bloke from the police report?” Hunter inquired, averting his eyes.

“Larry? No! Larry is a doll. It was my god-forsaken wife, man! I was just putting the casserole in the oven when she-” Answer found, Fitz reached out and the man turned cold again, and slammed back on the table. Fitz grimaced as the icky feelings flooded his body. 

“The wife!” Hunter said happily. He clapped Fitz on the shoulders. “We should have known, mate. She was way too accommodating when we went ‘round.”

“Yeah.” Fitz agreed, rubbing his shoulders. 

“Twenty grand in the bag, though!” Hunter pushed open the doors to the morgue and gave a friendly salute to the guard, who was all too willing to let Fitz and Hunter in illegally if they slid him a crisp Benjamin. 

“Yeah, twenty grand.” Fitz agreed as they walked out into the bright sunlight of the Manhattan street. Hunter sighed happily and pulled Fitz in to kiss the blond curls of his head. He was in such a good mood at the prospect of piles of money, that he’d momentarily forgotten all about Fitz’s weird physical boundaries. “Oi!” Fitz recoiled.

“You’re a little goldmine, you are.” Hunter smiled, rubbing his hair. 

“I guess so.” Fitz replied, even though he had never wanted to be a goldmine. 

“Back to the lab for you then?” Wondered Hunter aloud.

“Yeah. I’m working on a set of drones that have a variety of sensors-” Fitz began excitedly, but Hunter had been distracted by a beautiful blonde woman walking down the street who was light years out of his league. 

“Yeah, yeah, tell me later.” Hunter said, his eyes glued to her and a gleeful look on his face. And in three seconds he was ambling towards her with all the swagger his small frame could muster, and Fitz managed a small chuckle at the ridiculousness of his friend. 

The now adult Leopold James Fitz walked the rest of the way home alone but had a small bounce in his step. As he meandered through Central Park and snaked between sleeping homeless people and city blocks that smelled like human excrement, he didn’t think of his relationship with Hunter as one where Hunter was taking advantage of his powers; on the contrary, Fitz was happy that his curse could be used to bring closure to families who had lost loved ones-- the money was just an added bonus. When he reached his lab, he almost smiled at the receptionist and set to work with a positive attitude instead of his usual raincloud. 

Like his late father, Fitz had become an engineer because he had found early on that machines were much less likely to die on him than people were. And, since university, he had read every book on fluid dynamics and quantum mechanics on the planet, so he was quite possibly the most capable pair of hands for the job. In the background, he turned on the radio for the pleasant buzz of noise to drown out his thoughts and promptly set to work. 

It was only when he was putting the finishing touches to the digital sensors of his drones that he heard the radio announcer say something he recognized. 

“Tragedy struck one of London’s most prestigious labs early this morning when one of their most accomplished scientists, a young woman named Jemma Simmons, was found murdered at her desk-”

Leopold James Fitz’s head shot up so fast he thought he might have broken his own neck, but he hardly registered the pain as he all but sleep walked to the small radio and took it in his hands. For even though he hadn’t seen her since he had moved to Scotland, Fitz had thought of Jemma Anne Simmons for the last seven years, three months, twenty seven days, six hours, and fifty two minutes, and he knew that he was not about to stop now.


	4. (Re)meeting Jemma

The facts were these: Jemma Anne Simmons, formerly of Sheffield, England had been living a life of incredible success and prosperity since she had graduated high school. She had moved, as all young aspiring Brits do, to London for University and had graduated three years early because her brain was astronomical units ahead of those of her peers. She’d been snatched up by an up-and-coming (and very secretive) lab in the city, and had been awarded a Nobel Peace Prize, a Fields Medal, and Buzzfeed’s Most Intriguing Person of 2017 award all in the span of one year for her incredible work. As a young adult, she had retained her kind and gentle nature, and her coworkers were baffled when they found her dead on her desk in the early hours of a Tuesday morning with a pink plastic bag over her head, because the thought of killing a scientist with pictures of puppies taped to her lab equipment was possibly as horrible a thought as they came. Scotland Yard, as incompetent as ever, had no leads on a killer and no answers of any kind for her heartbroken friends and mother. 

Fitz bought a plane ticket on his mobile phone on his way to the airport in a taxi that was covered in multicolored chewing gum. He called Hunter, who answered quite out of breath (Fitz was decidedly certain that he had caught Hunter in a compromising position, namely one without pants), and instructed him rather unkindly that he had better meet him at JFK or Hunter would never use Fitz’s powers again for money. By the end of the call, Hunter was already in a taxi and screeching towards the airport. They both boarded a cramped flight full of tourists with ‘C’ shaped head pillows and selfie sticks, and Fitz refused to answer a single question that Hunter asked.

Fitz’s mind was racing like a show pony in the Kentucky Derby; he was imagining Jemma, his Jemma, laying in a casket with her porcelain white skin and ruby red lips and the image was enough to make him reach for an air sickness bag. A worried flight attendant came over and Hunter made wild excuses as Fitz retched. “Nervous flier, he is.” Hunter patted Fitz on the back. “Must have had one of those packaged muffins. Never trust a blueberry.”

By the time they landed in Heathrow, Leopold James Fitz was pale and shaky and covered in a glittering sheen of sweat that made him look like he’d just walked through a sprinkler. He let out little nervous burps as they collected their bags and grabbed a black taxi to the train station. Hunter was aching for a pint and a hotel room, but Fitz adamantly refused. For Fitz, he could not stop until he saw Jemma himself, and he briefly wondered if he would fall to his knees and brandish his fists at the sky like they did in the movies when he saw her. Three hours later, the hiss of the train doors sounded as they opened, and a calm British voice told them to “mind the gap,” as Fitz and Hunter stepped out into the light winter rainfall looking like tired extras from the set of a zombie apocalypse film. 

“So, you’re from here?” Hunter slurred with sleepiness as he took in the tiny train station.

“No. Scotland. But I spent some time here.” Fitz said distractedly, eyes darting left and right looking for another taxi. 

“Can we sleep now, mate?” Hunter asked wobbling.

“Not yet.” Fitz answered, spotting one cabbie with wild eyebrows and a cigar in his mouth. 

“Please?” Hunter whined as Fitz took off at a brisk pace towards the exit. 

Thirty minutes later, Hunter was drooling on Fitz’s shoulder in the back of the cab and snoring loudly. They were snaking through the familiar streets of Fitz’s childhood and it felt like an odd sort of surreal dream to be back. They passed by his old house and watched it pass with wide eyes, noting that there were toys trews about the lawn. It was strange to imagine someone else living in the same house where he’d lost his mother and father. They kept driving and soon they had reached the funeral home. “Stop.” Fitz said, hoarsely. 

The cabbie slammed on the breaks rather suddenly, and Hunter jolted awake with a, “Wuzzgoinon?”

Fitz shoved some crumpled notes into the cabbie’s hand and pulled Hunter out of the backseat and onto the slippery gravel of the entrance road. Tires screeching, the cab pulled off into the drizzly morning with a cloud of smoke, and Fitz and Hunter were left staring at the large building with some trepidation. 

“Someone dead?” Hunter asked slowly. “Someone you knew?”

“Yeah.” Fitz’s voice was a prepubescent squeak. 

“Have something you never said?” Hunter joked lightly. “Or did you just want to pay your respects?”

Fitz froze in place like the ground had turned to superglue. Until the words had left Hunter’s mouth, Fitz hadn’t known exactly what they were doing there. Now he did; he needed to come clean about how the death of Jemma’s father had been all his fault. She deserved that much, at least. If she even remembered him. After all, it had been seven years, eight months, eleven days, twelve hours, and seven minutes since he’d last seen her. He nodded like a bobblehead on the dashboard of a car driving over cobblestones, and set off. 

They walked through the double doors and into the silent building. Their every step reverberated off the walls, and Fitz shivered with the cold. He briefly wondered why funeral homes couldn't be in ethereal sunlit fields of sunflowers and poppies. Jemma would have liked that he realized, with a feeling not unlike being slammed in the stomach by a sumo wrestler. She’d always loved color. They wandered past a large bouquet of drooping white flowers and cards of condolence, and then past a pile of shiny laminated pamphlets about the dearly departed. Hunter thumbed through them and began to read. “Jemma Anne Simmons, murdered on . . . wait, hang on. Is this a case?”

Fitz was hardly listening. “Huh? Oh sure. A case.”

“How much money?” Inquired Hunter, sounding infinitely more awake.

“Uhh. . . hundred.” Fitz invented, his legs already beginning to move up the stairs to where he heard faint voices. 

“One hundred thousand?” Hunter squeaked. “Are you serious? How do-” Began Hunter as they creeped, but Fitz shushed him when they neared the room. There were white garlands of roses strung along the banister and they filled the room with a sweet perfume. Hearing voices, Fitz turned his head like a bloodhound catching a scent and Hunter followed, still muttering. 

“How did you-” 

“Hunter, be quiet.”

“I’m just saying, that’s a lot of-”

“Be quiet!”

“Who’s even dead anyway, I bet-”

“Stop talking!”

The door that Fitz had been pushing on opened with a click and the two of them stumbled into the room with all the poise of two drunken leprechauns on St Patrick’s Day. The door made an almighty noise when it cracked open, and the whole room turned in sync to look at the newcomers with startled eyes. Rising unsteadily to his feet, Fitz took in the room of mourning funeral-goers and the speaker who had frozen, mid-speech, to look at them with dumbfounded eyes. Everyone was in their best black suits and dresses, and Fitz chanced a glance to Hunter, whose shirt read ‘Damn the Yanks’ in bold letters, then to himself, sporting mismatched socks and a moth-eaten red and black flannel. 

“Sorry.” Fitz muttered, smiling awkwardly. “Please continue.”

The speaker blinked, then started up again with some uncertainty. Her face was blotchy with tears. “Jemma was a blessing to all that knew her. She brought light to every room with her smile and her kindness. And I’m-” The woman paused to wipe the stream of emotion running down her face, and hiccupped as she finished her eulogy. “I’m really going to miss her.”

Fitz felt as though a medium-sized frog had lodged itself in his throat and he felt prickly tears begin to well up in the corners of his eyes. He struggled for a full breath and as such he made a rather unpleasant honking noise through his nose. All eyes, for the second time of the service, turned to look at him: the blubbering mess of a twenty four year old boy with dark raccoon-ish circles under his eyes and no sense of personal fashion. He was letting loose like a broken fire hydrant and if he had had any self respect at all he would have left the service then and there. 

“Relax mate.” Hunter hissed. “Be cool.”

Fitz let out a sound somewhere in between a wail of misery and a laugh at his own ridiculousness, but somehow managed to sound more like a humpback whale than a human. “Okay.” Hunter said, before pulling him into his shoulder and patting his head awkwardly. “There there. Get a hold of yourself, will you?”

But Fitz had become the human incarnation of tears and couldn’t have stemmed the avalanche if he had tried, and he continued to sob loudly through the rest of the service. One particularly wizened old woman who smelled of formaldehyde approached him at the end, as she was walking out, and patted his shoulder kindly. “Maybe you should have a minute alone with her, love.” She creaked. “To say goodbye.”

Fitz nodded, great tears splashing the floor at his feet, and walked into the room where Jemma’s casket was held. The room was empty save for the coffin, and Fitz felt like he was approaching the event horizon as he walked closer to it; with each step he was less able to step away. With a wink, Hunter closed the door to the little room and suddenly everything was as quiet as a December dawn and Fitz’s heart was hammering.

He chanced a glance into the casket and then immediately withdrew like he’d been burned. For Jemma Anne Simmons was eternally frozen at twenty four years, seven months, eight days, and fifty four minutes old, and she was as beautiful as a rose in spring. She’d changed since he’d seen her last, her face older and less round and her hair longer and straighter, but her lips were still pink and he knew that if she opened her mouth he would see the famous smile that could rival the luminosity of the sun. She was dressed in a dark blue frock and a string of pearls that matched her earrings, and Fitz felt his heart expand to bursting in his chest. She looked so lovely.

Slowly, his hand hovered above the casket like a hummingbird, as Fitz was not sure where he wanted to touch her: her lips were too intimate, the tip of her nose too friendly, and the forehead too impersonal. He finally decided on her cheek, and he reached down to stroke the side of it with his finger and found her skin as soft as velvet.

She shot up like a jack in the box, and he stumbled back in surprise. She hit the top of her head on the casket lid and exclaimed, “Ouch!” before looking over in his direction and frowning in confusion.

“Am I dead?” She asked, rather reasonably, after a moment.

“Not anymore.” Fitz answered, heart still pounding from her sudden resurrection. 

“Interesting.” She decided, extending her hand out to look at it. “I feel fine.”

Fitz closed his eyes and tried to find the strength to say the words that he had prepared. “Jemma, I have something that I really need to tell you. It’s about your-”

“Hang on. I know that accent.” Her eyes narrowed and a smile played at the corner of her lips. “Leopold James Fitz came to my funeral?”

He beamed at her, glad both for the interruption and that she remembered. “Been a while.” He managed. 

“You never called.” She said, face falling. 

“Right.” He looked at his worn out shoes, feeling ashamed. “Sorry about that.”

“I thought about you a lot, you know.” Jemma told him, brushing past the subject quickly. “Never kissed anyone like you again.”

“I never kissed anyone like you again either.” Admitted Fitz. Or anyone else at all. “It was pretty-”

“Incredible.” Jemma finished for him. 

“Yeah.” He agreed, glowing like a streetlamp. “Incredible.”

They looked at one another softly for a few moments before Fitz felt a flash of blinding anger that someone had stolen her chance to life in such a cruel way. “Jemma, who killed you?” He stammered. 

“I don’t know.” She said. “My back was turned.”

“Did you have any enemies? Anyone who-” But Jemma just shook her head no. Fitz looked at his watch. Fourteen seconds. He had to confess that he’d killed her father and beg for forgiveness in less than fourteen seconds.

“I’m going to die again, aren’t I?” She gathered.

“I’m afraid so.” He answered sadly. 

“Well then, can you do something for me, Fitz?” She asked, her eyebrows raising.

He smiled. “Anything.”

“Will you kiss me?” She smiled. “I figure it’s quite poetic, you being my first kiss and all. Maybe you can be my last too. Is that weird?”

He blinked. “No,” he managed, trying not to sound too excited. “It’s quite symmetrical. And . . . I’d like that.” 

“Good. Come here.” She beckoned.

In an instant, they were mere centimeters apart. Fitz could count the freckles on her skin and was fondly remembering the sweet taste of her lips, and she was looking at him through her eyelashes and willing him to come closer and close the gap. But he knew something that she tragically didn’t; the second that his lips touched hers she would collapse back on the bed of the casket and would never move again. Fitz was already responsible for the life of her father, his father, his mother, and countless others. Adding Jemma Anne Simmons to the list had the potential to break his heart into thirteen thousand seven hundred and twenty four pieces, and he didn’t know if he could do it. So instead of kissing her, he spoke. “What if you didn’t have to die?” 

“That would be preferable.” Jemma answered, almost giggling, so close to him that he could feel her breath on his lips. 

“Okay then.” He said.

“Okay then.” She repeated. 

Fitz pulled away from her and looked at his watch. The big hand had moved past the point of no return; their fatal minute was up. But Jemma was still looking at his lips and he had to forcefully remind himself not to kiss her, even though every beat of his heart was screaming to. “Okay, there are some ground rules.” He said.

“I like rules.” Responded Jemma, leaning back from him slightly.

“We can’t . . . uh, touch.” He stated. 

“What?” Her voice rose in surprise, as well as her eyebrows. “Not ever?”

“Nope.”

“But what if you need a hug?” She countered. “Hugs are an emotional heimlich, everyone feels better after a hug. Or what if you have an eyelash on your face and it’s bugging me?” 

“All no.” He said, wiping his cheek in an unconscious search of an eyelash. “Not unless you want to die immediately afterward.” 

She crossed her arms and frowned. “Fine. I don’t like it, but fine.” 

“Also, you can’t tell anyone. Not even your mum.” Fitz emphasized. 

Jemma’s mouth fell open. “But she’s my mum! She won’t tell anyone!”

“Can’t risk it. If she knows you’re alive, she’ll act differently and people will get suspicious. And then both of us will spend the rest of our lives as lab experiments.” He explained, watching her face grow more and more unhappy.

“Well, what about my job?” She asked, almost angrily. “I can’t abandon all the work I’ve done! I just discovered-”

“I’m sorry.” Fitz muttered, sincerely. 

In all the fourteen years, three months, eleven days, and forty seven minutes that he’d known her, Fitz had never once seen Jemma Anne Simmons frown. But she did now, and he stepped back when he felt the laser beams of discontentment hit him like a truckful of cement. “Fine.” She said, darkly. “Any other terrible rules?”

Fitz shook his head. “That’s all. But, we should get you out of here.”

She sighed, and extended a hand out in his direction. “Can you help me out?”

Fitz remained frozen in his spot, and realization dawned on her face. “Right.” She remembered. “No touching.” 

Fitz watched as she clamored out of the silk-lined casket and put her two feet solidly on the floor. She looked down at her dreary outfit and sighed, exasperated. “My Gran dressed me, didn’t she? I would never wear dark blue to my own funeral.” 

Fitz almost giggled when he remembered all of the bright colors and patterns and sparkles that accompanied Jemma in his memory. “You look nice.” He assured her. 

There was a softness in her gaze when she looked up at him and there was a single loose tendril of brown hair that Fitz desperately wanted to push behind her ear. She looked like her insides had melted and deflated just a little bit. “Oh, Fitz.” She told him. “I really want to touch you.”

He agreed with every fiber of his being. This was going to be significantly more difficult than Fitz had bargained for.


	5. You Did What?!

When they finally emerged from the room, dark had fallen outside and Hunter was fast asleep on a folding chair with a smudge of funeral cake on his lips. With a nervous nudge, Fitz prodded him and Hunter flailed with the suddenness of waking. His eyes widened when they fell upon Jemma, who was wrapped in Fitz’s flannel and still wearing her blue death dress and sensible shoes. 

“Mate. You didn’t-” Hunter began.

“Oops?” Fitz said sheepishly. “Lance Hunter, this is Jemma Simmons. She’s-” Fitz looked at Jemma’s bright smile that was egging him on and tried to describe what they were to each other. “Friend.” He decided. “She’s my friend.”

Hunter smiled a strained sort of grin as he rose, grabbing Fitz by the arm. “I know who you are. I’ve got a funeral programme with your picture on it, thanks. Could you just excuse me and my dimwitted friend here for a moment please?”

Fitz was unceremoniously pulled to a corner of the room before Jemma could even nod, and Hunter was pacing back and forth like he had ants in his pants. The eerie white moonlight from the windows made his skin look ghastly pale. Even after all they had been through, Fitz had never seen Hunter look so scared. “Are you mental?” He hissed.

“I couldn’t kill her.” Fitz explained, dropping his arms in exasperation. 

“She was already dead!” Hunter’s eyes were dinner plates of disbelief.

“Hunter. Just look at her.” Both of them turned to Jemma across the room, who was milling around her funeral hall with a mixture of sadness and interest. She looked like a fairy to Fitz, equal parts magic and beauty. The same white moonlight shined upon Jemma as upon Hunter, but it made her look heavenly, not scared. She was something forged from diamonds and pixie dust, with her soft brown hair ruffling in neat waves over her shoulders. She trailed a long finger across the wood paneling of the funeral home walls, and Fitz thought that she looked like a ballerina with delicate and graceful wrists. Fitz felt his face pinken. She was still wearing his flannel. 

Hunter snapped his fingers in front of Fitz’s face. “Oi. Earth to Fitz. Christ, you’ve lost your mind over a pair of googly eyes!”

“It’s not just that.” Fitz tried, tearing himself away. “It’s . . . complicated.”

“Is this some sort of weird childhood trauma thing? We all have childhood trauma, Fitz.” Hunter sounded frustrated out of his mind. “I’ve got a lifetime subscription to Childhood Trauma Magazine. It’s a twice-weekly periodical. Horror stories. But we don’t-”

“I killed her father.” Fitz interrupted quietly.

Hunter quieted, and raised his eyebrows. “Okay. So maybe mine are less like horror stories and more like small jump scares. Shit, mate.” 

Fitz almost laughed. “Yeah. Shit about sums it up.”

Then Hunter turned to him quickly and grabbed his arm. His scared eyes had finally found their words. “What about the one minute, one death rule?”

Color drained from Fitz’s face like water from a bathtub. “Oh, damn it.”

“Oh damn it?!” Hunter raised his fingers in sarcastic quotes as he repeated Fitz’s words. “Oh damn it?! I thought you said it was a vicinity thing?”

“It is.” Fitz said, eyes scanning the room for a body.

“Mate, I was in the vicinity.” Hunter rolled his eyes, and pressed the heels of his palms to his eyes. “You could have killed me without a thought-”

“Well-” Began Fitz.

“Well, what?” He said, his voice high and disbelieving. 

“Well, you look fine!” Fitz exclaimed. “Maybe we dodged a bullet--”

“Sorry to break up the whisper party,” Jemma’s voice carried through the room. “But there’s a dead body on the floor.” 

If looks could kill, the one that Hunter shot Fitz would have sent him to the grave in less than a millisecond.   
———-

The body belonged to one Joseph Lee Tucker, aged ninety seven years, six months, twenty nine days, fourteen hours, and fifty six minutes old. Jemma looked incredibly saddened to see him there on the floor, and her eyes misted up. They gathered around him like a colony of vultures. 

“Oh thank God.” Hunter said, breathing a loud sigh of relief. “He’s ancient. We don’t have to feel that bad, because-”

“Hunter for once in your life, be quiet.” Fitz snapped before he could spill Fitz’s secret. “Are you okay, Jemma?”

“He was my piano teacher.” Jemma mused. “He was so kind.”

“I’m sorry.” Fitz reached out to brush his hand comfortingly on her arm, but stopped himself. Her eyes followed his movement and she smiled sadly and gratefully, like she knew that if he could he’d be clasping her shoulder. He couldn’t, but she appreciated it all the same. 

“We should go.” Hunter said. “Before someone sees.”

Jemma gaped. “No! We have to tell someone!”

“So they can spot you?” Hunter countered. “No.”

“I’ll hide or something!” Jemma compromised. “We can’t just leave him here.”

“I’ll tell them.” Fitz decided. “Hunter, you take Jemma back to-”

“What? Back to the United States? We don’t even have a hotel.” Hunter rolled his eyes. “I haven’t slept in twenty four hours, mate, I’m a freaking zombie. And now I’m in the company of an actual zombie. No offense.” He added to Jemma. 

“None taken.” She replied. 

“So get a hotel.” Fitz told him. “And I’ll meet you there. We’ll figure out the rest later.”

Sighing like he’d just given up his lottery winnings, Hunter nodded. “Fine. I’ll text you when we’re settled.”

Fitz shook his hand and when they broke apart, Hunter squeezed him on the shoulder. It was a subtle reminder that despite how unhappy he was acting, Hunter was by Fitz’s side. He wouldn’t damn Fitz to save Jemma on his own, and he would help as long as Fitz asked him to. Maybe longer. Surging with happiness that they had met so many years ago, Fitz grinned back before turning to Jemma, the warmth of Hunter’s friendship like a blanket over his shoulders. Unable to touch her, Fitz just looked at Jemma. “I’ll see you later.” He promised.

“Okay.” She said. 

Hunter touched her shoulder gently to turn her towards the door, and they left the building. As they left, Fitz could hear Hunter say exasperatedly, “And for the love of God, keep your head down. We are leaving your funeral, after all. If anyone sees us, we’re toast.”

After they were gone, the room filled with silence quickly. Fitz suddenly felt as tired as he’d ever been. He looked back to the old man on the floor and tried not to let his overwhelming guilt bubble over like a pot of spaghetti water in his chest. “Sorry.” He whispered in a voice as frail as paper in a roaring wind. “I’m sorry. You paid the price because I couldn’t-”

Not only could Leopold James Fitz not kill Jemma Anne Simmons, the butter yellow sunshine to his banal grey life, but he couldn’t even find the words to apologize to the man who’d died for her. Fitz felt that such an apology would feel sour on his tongue; he didn’t feel worthy of it. In his eyes, he was as deplorable as the criminals he imprisoned for murder yet worse still -- he got away with it. This man on the floor had been robbed of his future, his passions, his life just because Leopold James Fitz had been a coward. And a selfish one at that. Vowing to give Jemma everything she deserved when they returned to the states, he swallowed thickly and felt a minuscule bit of the dark rain cloud dissipate above his head. He would pour all of himself into Jemma, and then perhaps all of this pain could be worth it. He would pour and pour and pour until she overflowed with his love, and still he would pour. He’d pour for Jemma and he’d pour for the dead man on the floor. Until there was nothing of him left. 

With a final glance to the man, Fitz left the funeral home and told the appropriate people that the he was dead. Despite his promise to do right by Jemma, he felt like a blue filter had been slipped in front of his eyelids as he walked to the hotel. In the rain, the puddles on the street looked like melting silver and he thought he heard the eerie echo of piano music as he walked. For Jemma, he thought. It will all be worth it.


	6. Coming Home

As much as Leopold James Fitz would have liked to have stayed awake all day talking to Jemma Anne Simmons about every single thing that he’d missed since he’d seen her last, by the time he got back to the hotel room that Hunter had booked, his eyes were nearly hanging out of his sockets and his arms were dragging on the ground like those of a cartoon gorilla. He hadn’t slept in twenty eight hours, thirty one minutes, and fourteen seconds, and the second his feet crossed over the yellowish threshold of their room, he promptly passed out and didn’t move for another day. 

He finally pushed himself out of a dirty queen-sized bed, groaning and blinking thirty times a second, and the foggy room came into focus. Off-white moth-eaten curtains did little to obscure the light slanting in the room, and Fitz looked to his side. Beside a broken digital clock, Hunter snored loudly, with his mouth wide open looking extremely ridiculous. Yawning and turning to the other side of the room, Fitz forgot to breathe for two and a half seconds. Front and center, legs crossed and watching him closely from the other bed, was the radiant Jemma Anne Simmons, wearing the same clothes as the day before and somehow looking twice as luminous. Fitz gulped. 

“You slept well.” She noted, smiling slightly. “You snored though.”

“Sorry.” He mumbled, wiping dried drool from his face. “Didn’t mean to keep you up.”

“I didn’t sleep.” She said. “Had a lot on my mind.”

“I’d expect so.” Fitz scratched his jaw with a small grin. “Not everyday you come back to life.”

“I’m a human leftover meal.” Jemma smiled good-naturedly. 

“But alive.” He assured her. “Plus, who doesn’t like leftovers?”

“That’s the thing, Fitz.” Jemma’s eyes glowed with excitement, brushing past his comment. “How can that be? It’s illogical!”

“Well, when one eliminates the logical, no matter how improbable, what’s remains must be the truth.” Fitz recited the quote of one of his favorite childhood stories and watched as her face grew exasperated.

“Thank you, Spock.” Jemma rolled her eyes. “Very profound.”

“Actually, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle first-” Fitz started.

“I know. I read the stories. But it was made famous by Star Trek.” Jemma steamrolled him. “But no matter. Because my resurrection poses a significant physical dilemma—one of a scientific nature.”

“Oh?” His eyebrows raised.

She hummed. “I don’t know what you do for a living other than reincarnate the dead-”

“I’m an engineer.” He interrupted. “After I moved to the United States, I went to MIT and got a degree in two years. Been working in a lab ever since.”

“Really?” She asked, curiosity spiking. “Incredible! I wonder if-” Then she shook her head. “In an effort to stay on topic, I will now assume that you’re familiar with the first law of thermodynamics.”

“Of course.” He said, almost affronted. “No energy in the universe is created-”

“And none is destroyed. Precisely.” Finished Jemma. 

“And what does that have to do with you?” Fitz asked, struggling to connect the dots.

“It means,” she scooted forward on her perch, looking like a bird posed for flight. “That there’s something you’re not telling me. It took a massive amount of energy to reincarnate a dead body, that much is certain. And that energy came from somewhere-- it couldn’t come from thin air. That would go against all the laws of physics. So either-”

Skin pricking in both nerves and awe that Jemma had just used physics to discover the one life equals one death rule, Fitz stuttered to protect the truth. “I get what you’re saying. But surely the act of being brought back to life goes against so many other laws, that we can assume that the rules of physics no longer apply in this case?”

“They always apply. That’s the important bit.” Jemma pushed. 

“Then maybe some other law of physics is at work. Something we haven’t discovered yet.” Fitz was scrambling, but Jemma’s eyes had grown misty. 

“I didn’t think of that.”

“It was brilliant.” Fitz assured her, feeling guilty for putting obstacles in her path to discovery. “You’re brilliant. But, I think that perhaps we have to forget about science here. We’re in uncharted territory.”

She looked at her notes, eyes misting up. “Fitz, science is all I have now. I can’t talk to my Mum, I don’t have a job-”

“Hey.” He said gently, pushing the covers off and settling beside her, though careful to leave a cushion of protection between them. He looked in her big brown eyes. “You have me.”

Her smile in return was watery. 

“And, for better or worse, you have him too.” Fitz gestured in the direction of Hunter, still sawing logs on the bed. “He may be a complete nutter, but he’s on our side. So we’ll figure it out, okay? Together.”

She sighed, and two giant tears rolled down her face. “Okay.”

“Okay?” He asked.

“Yeah. I suppose dying is as good an excuse as any to start living.” 

Around Jemma Anne Simmons, Leopold James Fitz couldn’t help but smile. And he did then, bright and wide, and she glowed too. “You’re as incredible as I remember.” He managed to say through his tight cheeks. 

In return, she smiled back and Fitz would be damned to say that energy didn’t radiate from her like light from a sunbeam.

———

It took nine days, seven hours, forty six minutes, and fifty nine seconds to get all the appropriate documents falsified for Jemma; usually, minting a brand new identity was an arduous task, but Hunter was as sly as ever and managed to press the passport and driver's license into her hands without much struggle. Rain water, in true English fashion, splashed high against the tall glass windows of Heathrow Airport when they found their departure gate. Jemma shook with powerful sobs for the entire six hour, seven minute, and thirty eight second flight, as she knew that she would probably never return. Leopold James Fitz had never resented Hunter more than he did then, watching Jemma clutch Hunter’s shoulder rather than his, and watching him shush her gently as the only home she’d ever known faded first to the size of a pin prick and then to absolute obscurity forever. 

But once they arrived, Jemma’s eyes brightened when she saw the orange and pink skyline brighten over Manhattan. “Oh,” She breathed, voice tight with emotion. “It’s beautiful.” After landing, she seemed to have reached a peaceful stalemate with her former self and her mood lightened considerably. They waved goodbye to Hunter as they stepped out of a bright yellow taxi, and she even giggled when Fitz opened the door to his tiny apartment, more amused by the posters of space on the walls than the impressive heaps of laundry on the floor. 

They went together to buy her a mattress of her own, and Jemma laughed with mirth when they bounced on each one to test its spring. Laying side by side in the massive department store, with employees looking at them like they were naughty children, Jemma and Fitz were red-faced and joyful to have each other. Fitz, perhaps more so than Jemma, though he couldn’t tell for sure. She definitely seemed to like him more than others did; she laughed at his jokes like they genuinely brought her happiness, and taunted him with a kind sort of smile behind her eyes that was almost completely foreign to him. His whole life, Fitz had never had a real partner in crime (not that he had committed many crimes anyway) but it was truly something indescribably wonderful to have a person sit beside him to steal fries off of his plate and to ask him deep questions about his job and his passions. He asked her about hers too, and soon they just ended up talking ceaselessly about science; she was brighter than most of the lab technicians he’d encountered at MIT and a worthy intellectual partner. Unlike with Hunter, when Fitz told Jemma about the drones that he was trying to build, her eyes grew as wide as dinner plates and she grilled him with questions for the rest of the evening on what tech he was using, how they’d be configured, and if he was using fractal geometry to make them more compact. She was a wonder.

They walked home that night, both wobbly with jet lag and chuckling periodically until they reached his front door. A light snow had begun to fall, catching in her eyelashes and her hair, and breath clouded at her lips in silent little puffs. She rested her lovely forehead on the doorframe as she watched him fumble with the keys, and smiled sadly and tiredly. “What?” He asked, self-conscious.

“I’m happy.” She answered, biting her lip.

Grinning, he pushed open the door, and waved her through. She pulled off her scarf and hung it on the peg on the wall, and then placed her knit hat on another like it was already her home. Like it was second nature. 

“Is that a bad thing?” Fitz inquired, only a tad confused. 

“No. Yes? Ugh.” She toed off her boots and flopped face first onto his couch, and he watched with a light smile. “I’m dead.” She said into the cushions. “Dead, Fitz! I’ll never see my family again. Everything I know is gone. But-” She turned her head to him, and her face was still flushed from the cold and squished against the pillows. “But somehow I’m happy. It’s all very confusing.”

“Well I know something that can help that.” He shrugged off his heavy coat, and tossed it on the chair by the wall. 

“Oh?” She tried to raise an eyebrow but the pillow obstructed the movement some. 

“A cup of tea always helps.” He said. “That’s what my mum used to say about everything.”

Fitz walked into the kitchen, and pulled two mugs from the cupboard. He started the stove to heat the kettle, and grabbed a selection of teas as well. Lavender, Chamomile, Earl Grey, Chai. The box perfumed the small kitchen when he opened it to her. 

“I never really knew your mum.” Jemma said, rising from the couch and hanging Fitz’s discarded jacket beside her scarf, unconsciously. Thoughtfully, she walked over to him and took a lavender tea bag from his box.“What happened to her? I only know that it was the same night we kissed-”

“She died.” Fitz said quietly. “Doctors said it was an asthma attack.”

“I’m sorry.” Jemma’s voice was as soft as velvet as she leaned on the doorframe, tea bag dancing between her fingertips. 

Fitz tried to shrug like it was no big deal, but his heart had turned the color of the ocean during a storm. He turned away and put the box back in the cupboard. It seemed extremely quiet. He could hear every bubble rise to the surface of the kettle and release with a small pop. “S’okay. Was a long time ago.”

“I’d have thought that you would have . . . you know, brought her back. Like you did with me.” Jemma tried, shifting her weight.

“She wouldn’t have liked that.” Fitz said, in an attempt to be lighthearted. Even to his ears, it felt forced. “She loved pinching my cheeks. Wouldn’t have been able to do the whole ‘no touch’ thing.”

“Your dad died the same night mine did, too.” She remembered. “It seems pretty lonely. Living like you have been.” She said sadly.

Fitz bowed his head and listened to the bubbling of the boiling water. He turned back to her but couldn’t meet her eyes. “Yeah, it has been.”

“Hey.” Jemma said, brightly. “You don’t have to be lonely anymore. You have me too. It’s a symbiotic relationship, ours.”

Fitz looked up to the cheetah-print shoe-ed, yellow sweater-ed, and pink lipped girl of his dreams, smiling gently at him in his kitchen and felt tears prick at the corners of his eyes. “Yeah.” He choked. “Not anymore.”


	7. A New York Lab

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Apologies in advance if some of the science equipment mentioned is all wrong haha I’m a writer not a biochemist haha

Of course, life with Jemma Anne Simmons as a flatmate was not always sunshine, daisies, honey, and a bowl of sunlit oranges on a kitchen table. Though, admittedly, she liked all of those things. It was strange at first, changing all of his normal daily routines and rhythms to accommodate her as well. He stumbled out of his room the first morning in his boxers like he did each day, yawning widely, and had already brewed his regular cup of coffee when he heard a snicker behind his back.

“I like your monkey undies.” She chuckled.

He was so surprised to see her in his kitchen, that he promptly dropped his drink and spilled hot liquid all down his front. His favorite mug smashed into ceramic pieces on the ground with a delightful crash. 

Eventually though, he learned to expect her in the mornings and would put on a shirt so her eyes didn’t bleed at the sight of his pasty little body. He learned she took lemon in her tea but never sugar, liked to listen to the radio before bed, and sang sappy love songs (quite loudly and extremely off-key) in the shower. She had a wicked sense of humor that could have him in tears of mirth in a minute at the most inappropriate times, and with one direct glance of the eye he knew exactly when it was time to shut his mouth. Sometimes she cried into her pillow and he would pretend not to hear, and sometimes she would quickly close a window of the computer so that he wouldn’t see that she was checking up on her friends back home. But her laugh was a spring breeze and her presence in his life was undoubtedly the best thing that had ever happened to it. 

It took only two weeks, three days, nine hours, and seventeen minutes for Jemma Anne Simmons to become so frightfully bored staying at home that she convinced him to let her come to work with him as a guest. Watching her walk into the lab, all bright colors and cheery smiles beside the grim lab coats and filing cabinets, was like watching a rainbow appear out of thin air after a rainstorm. She positively glowed. “Oh Fitz,” She sighed, trailing her hands down the lab benches and eyeing the equipment. “It’s fantastic.”

“I’m glad you like it.” He said, wholeheartedly. 

“I love it.” She emphasized. “Is that-”

“A spectrophotometer? The newest model.” He grinned.

“And a chemiluminescent documentation system?”

“Complete with a gel electrophoresis reagents.” He added proudly. And a little bit smugly.

She smiled and sighed. “Wow, this really is quite the setup you have. No wonder you spend so much time here.”

“It’s a lot of busy work. I’d rather be with you.” He replied, honestly.

“Maybe I could apply here as well?” Jemma wondered, stepping closer. “Fitz, imagine it! We could be lab partners!”

He almost laughed. “Don’t know how well we’d work together. I’m engineering, you’re-”

“Biochem, I know. But together, we’d be twice as smart. You know that.” She cocked an eyebrow. “And plus, we work well together everywhere else.”

He felt a warm surge in his heart. “Yeah, we do.”

Their eyes met and they shared a smile, but the moment was a fleeting one as her attention was turned elsewhere. “Is this what I think it is?” She hurried to the box that held his drone prototypes and stretched her hands out eagerly. Looking awestruck, she fingered the clasps on either side of the box and wrenched it open.

“Yeah.” He flocked to her side. “The drones I’ve been telling you about. That one there, that’s for measuring the structural integrity of a building. And that one-” 

“Have you ever considered a biochemical drone as well?” Jemma picked up a drone and held it at eye level. “One that could measure toxicity and biometrics?”

His eyes widened and his jaw dropped. “Jemma, you’re brilliant.”

She scoffed. “Told you we’d work well together.” 

“You should apply.” He told her, imagining a world of domesticity wherein she and Fitz could take the subway together in the mornings and evenings, eat lunch in the bright sunlight of the park outside, and work together in the lab, bouncing ideas and hypotheses off each other like sounding boards. “You’d be brilliant.”

“I am brilliant. A child prodigy with an above average fashion sense. But it’s still to early, don’t you think?” Her eyebrows knitted together in worry.

For the time being, they’d come to an agreement that it was probably best that Jemma lay low for a while. Her death, Fitz assured her, was something that would take a while for people to forget. Until then she could stay with him and eat all the biscuits and fruit her heart desired. She had grinned at that. 

“Soon.” He promised her. In truth, he was dreading the day that she would leave and wanted to postpone it as long as possible, but wouldn’t stand in her way when she finally (and inevitably) decided to. 

“I won’t leave you, Fitz.” She told him like she’d been reading his mind. “You know that, right?”

He felt his face redden and he dropped his gaze to the blue linoleum floor of his lab. “Yeah.”

“Good.” She said. “Because I’ve been thinking, Fitz-”

Whatever she had been planning to say he never found out. Their conversation was suddenly interrupted by a scream that made all of the hairs rise on Fitz’s neck and he flinched violently. It was a nails on a chalkboard, banshee style, duck-and-cover type of noise and Fitz felt his whole body tense and fill to the brim with panic. Jemma’s eyes widened and in half a second she was off in the direction of the noise. Struggling to cover his ears and follow her at the same time, he stumbled on his shoes as he chased after her rapidly retreating back down the glass hallway. “Jemma!” He called to her.

She hurried with a holy purpose down the hallway, pushing white lipped lab technicians out of the way. Fitz felt very much like a salmon swimming upstream as he tried to catch up with her, bumping into everything he possibly could. He took a cartful of supplies to the hipbone and winced, limping after her. She hurled herself in the room with the screamer, and Fitz, just a few footsteps behind, froze as still as one of Medusa’s stone statues beside the door, hip throbbing. For the scene that greeted his eyes was a horrific one, and in the grand scope of things, he didn’t make such statements lightly. 

Inside, an unfortunate lab technician looked like a demonic possession movie come to life. His neck was arched back and his mouth was twisted in a ear-splitting scream. All along his arms and face, little purple veins snaked up his body, the color deep and primal. The scene was downright horrific. There was a mechanical contraption on the man’s forearm that looked like a metal caterpillar, but Fitz had never seen a piece of equipment quite like it before and had no idea what it was. But there were more pressing matters to attend to; namely, how the man’s eyes bulged an inch out of his head like in a whack-a-mole arcade game. It would have been sufficiently terrifying even if he hadn’t been floating three feet above the floor. All the hair on Fitz’s arms stood up straight and he gasped. His terror was debilitating. 

Beside the man who screamed endlessly, another lab technician was pulling on his partner’s lab coat-- trying to get him back on the ground. Jemma was suddenly right beside them, placing a gentle hand on the second man’s shoulder. “What happened?” She asked.

“I don’t know!” The man cried, worry radiating off him in waves and tears in his eyes. “We were just examining some new samples from HQ, and he cried out! Everything happened so fast-”

“Fitz.” Jemma instructed. “Set up a quarantine around this room and call CDC.”

“No.” He said. “I’m not leaving you here. We don’t know what it could be-”

“I’ll be fine.” She promised. “I’ve handled worse back home. Go.”

Reluctantly, he saw that her honey eyes were full of stubbornness and he knew further arguments would just aggravate her. She was a donkey in the mud; pulling would do no good. “Be careful.” He managed, before turning from the room.

He almost collided into someone as he cleared the doorway. All around the hallways, other lab techs and scientists had gathered with dinner-plate sized eyes and pale faces, too worried to peer in the door but too curious to let the matter lie. They were gathered closely together, clutching each other’s arms and touching their lips in worry, eyebrows tightly knit. Making his excuses, he hurried down to HQ.

As he ran, the stumbling Leopold James Fitz felt a massive surge of pride that Jemma had heard pain and hadn’t flinched like he had, and had instead hurried to help without a thought. While others had shrunk away, Jemma Anne Simmons, in all of her colorful and cheerful glory, had risen like a goddess and had met the challenge with her unwavering gentleness and intellect. Half worried out of his mind (and half drunk in love with her), Fitz hastened to clear the perimeter and alert the authorities as she had asked. His heart pounded heavily; he so rarely ran. He slammed the elevator button and rode down alongside a bewildered lift attendant to the ground floor then hurried to a roomful of executive men in suits and thick glasses who blinked at him when he told them what had happened. They looked like owls with wide eyes and no comprehension of human language. Just as the words left his mouth a second time, slower and in simpler terms than before, there was a flash of blue energy and an explosion from above that shook the fillings in his teeth and sent him tumbling to the ground. Something deadly had been unleashed upstairs. A biochemical weapon or bomb of some kind, the type that leveled buildings and cracked open sidewalks like eggshells. 

With ringing ears and hands stinging raw from where he had fallen, Fitz rose shakily to his feet. It took a moment to register what had happened. Then the screams, a horrifying chorus of terror, filled the air. Like water leaving a bathtub, every hope felt as if it had drained out of Fitz in a millisecond. He could feel his face whitening so he turned without another word and ran towards the explosion. He ran with panic in his chest and fear in his heart, his body tingling with adrenaline. The lift attendant refused to go back up, dust in his hair and eyelashes, and from offices all around, people were evacuating. He heard someone make a 911 call with a hurried voice. People pushed past him but he didn’t move; he only wobbled to keep his balance. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw the stairwell and solidified his resolve. He wrenched open the door and pulled himself up, step after step. About halfway up and lungs heaving, he started seeing other people running down. “What are you doing?!” They asked, screaming. They tried to push him back the other way, but he kept going up. With every step he begged to every deity that he could think of. Please. Please, not Jemma. 

When he finally reached the right level, there was smoke hanging in the air and bodies were strewn on the floor like dirty laundry. The lab was smoldering with fire, and steel beams had collapsed and fallen, twisted, to the ground. His every step made a tinkling noise as his shoes crushed glass underfoot. “Jemma?” He screamed.

There was no answer. Eyes streaming from smoke and heart hammering, he looked left and right for her. Soon, breathing in made his lungs burn and he had to pull his shirt collar over his mouth. “Jemma!” He yelled again, hoping against hope that she would appear. 

He heard a faint cough, like a whisper, and he hurried down the familiar hallway to the sound. There, underneath a beam, was one of his colleagues. The man’s eyes were hazy and he coughed with every breath, but managed to say Fitz’s name. Desperately, Fitz glanced up to the burning inferno that had been his precious lab. For eternal seconds he waited for Jemma to emerge like a phoenix, with fiery eyes and her brilliant smile, but then the man coughed again and with his heart falling into the great abyss, Fitz knew that he had to leave. He grabbed hold of his colleague and heaved him up. Weak and stumbling, he leaned all of his weight on Fitz’s tiny frame and Fitz felt his spine compress. “Is there anyone else?” He managed, coughing through his words. 

“No one.” The man replied, his voice hoarse. 

“You’ll be fine, okay?” Fitz told him. “Just stay with me.”

He didn’t know how they managed it. But they eventually made it down the stairwell and a red faced and sweaty Leopold James Fitz handed his unconscious colleague to a first responder who was already prepped with a gurney and other medical essentials. Another reached out to Fitz but Fitz recoiled quickly, swatting the helpful hand away like it was an irksome housefly. “Jemma?” He called, his voice sounding far too desperate to be his own.

His feet took him out to the street where a light New York snow was falling, and a group of terrified spectators were watching the top floor of the building burn like it was a horror film unraveling in real time. Police were trying to get people to stand back, putting up yellow caution tape and barricades, and Fitz had to fend off yet another wave of good-intentioned first responders to get a clear look at all of the wounded people being carted into ambulances. He looked for the most beautiful girl in the world and didn’t find her. 

“Jemma!!” He called one more time, but this time his throat was tightening with tears and he considered the impossible; she could be dead and cold, unable to be reawoken for a second time. Or worse, he’d never know. Then, like a hot knife through butter, a clear voice called out and he turned to see her sprinting towards him.

“Fitz!” She called.

Like an ocean wave, like an automobile collision, like a badly assembled piece of IKEA furniture being pulled to the ground, relief crashed into his chest so hard he felt like he had been punched. She sprinted between bystanders and police cars with her hair a tangled brown mess and dirt all over her face and a rip in her colorful sweater, and he didn’t think he’d seen anything so beautiful in his whole life. If he could have, he would have scooped her up in his arms and held her so tightly that he would have breathed her in. He would have pressed his lips to every part of her face that he could reach: her cheeks, her forehead, her eyelids. She would have clutched at his jacket and turned her face into his neck and he would have felt the hot tears in her eyes as she held him to her. Perhaps they would have sunk to the ground, knees wobbly with relief, and pulled back only long enough to check one other’s faces for signs of harm. But he couldn’t touch her and she stopped short, chest heaving, about a foot in front of him. 

“You’re okay.” She choked, tears running down her cheeks and arms hugging herself. “When I didn’t see you, I thought-”

“God, me too.” His throat was painfully tight. “Jemma, I was so worried-”

“I want to touch you.” She whispered, eyes filling with a fresh surge of tears. She reached out and her hands hovered inches away from his face. “Just to feel that you’re okay.”

“I’m okay.” He promised her, his voice still shaking. His fingertips ached with wanting to touch her too, and to feel her soft hair between his fingers and her warm skin beneath his hands. They looked at each other like they were sharing an electric current, but then a first responder went past them with a gurney and Jemma looked away. Then her eyes cleared and she looked back at him in awe.

“Fitz.” She gasped. “You could save these people.”

Shaking his head violently, he tried to explain. “That’s not how it works. I can’t just bring everyone back-”

“These people aren’t just anyone, Fitz, they’re your coworkers. Brilliant scientists, mechanics.” She told him, confidently. “And you can save them.”

He felt his feet shuffle backwards, away from her. “I can’t-”

“You can.” She said, stronger this time.

“No, Jemma, you don’t understand.” His voice was starting to ring with panic. “I can’t-”

“No one will see you. It’s chaos around here.” There were desperate tears in her eyes. “Please, Fitz. Save them.”

“Jemma-” Reproachful, he raised a hand in front of himself like he was protecting himself from her words.

“Why not? I’m a doctor, I spend my whole life trying to save people. And you can do it by just touching them. Why won’t you?” She asked, almost hysterically.

“I just can’t, please, just let it go.” Begged Fitz.

“You’re a coward.” She realized, breathlessly. “You could save all of them but you won’t because you’re a coward. These people are dying and you could do something about it-”

“Jemma, please be quiet-”

“They have families, Fitz! These people are your friends-”

“Jemma, stop yelling-”

“You’re a coward!” She yelled again, and the tears streaming down her face created rivers down her cheeks and neck. “You’re a coward, Leopold James Fitz-”

“I’m not!” His heart was pounding.

“You are!” She hurled at him, venom in her words. “You are-”

“If I save them, other people will die!” He bellowed, tears in his own eyes. He barely remembered that he should have stayed quiet, just absorbing her violent words. But he selfishly wanted her to know that he had gone back for her without a thought. That he had saved his collegue and that, so many years ago, he had even killed his own mother to save others. He was no coward. But then it dawned on him that perhaps he was; that was probably why he quaked where he stood from his unforseen confession. Immediately, he felt unmoored in a surging flood, grasping for a handhold. His chest heaved. 

For a moment, she just blinked. His words swirled around the snow and settled over her, settling in her heart slowly. Police and ambulance sirens, distant taxi horns, distraught cries from bystanders-- all seemed to fall silent as his fatal confession reached and registered in the one pair of ears that he had never wanted to hear it. Her chest rose and fell like she’d just run a mile at top speed, and her cheeks were flushed from yelling. “What?” She stuttered.

He closed his eyes and tried to push past it. “I can’t save them.”

“Don’t you do that. Don’t you dare.” She hissed, furiously, stepping closer and seeing straight through him with her emotional X-Ray vision. “What did you mean about other people dying?”

With teary eyes, he looked back up at her. “You were right.” He managed. “That first night in Sheffield. About the first law of thermodynamics. When I bring someone back, someone else has to die. That’s the cost of my powers. A life for a life.”

“So you lied to me.” She said, stepping back with a dumbfounded slowness, her voice both cold and incredibly hurt, like a piece of fractured glass. Then realization crossed her eyes. “Wait, that means that at my funeral-”

“The old man we found died because I couldn’t kill you.” Fitz felt like the Earth was going to swallow him whole, right here in the middle of Manhattan. Her eyes flashed with something red and angry at his words, and then with something else. Hurt. Guilt. “You have to understand-”

“He died because of me.” Gasped Jemma, a fresh wave of emotion rising in her cheeks and eyes. “Because I lived.”

Walking closer to her, Fitz tried. “I couldn’t leave you like that. You deserved better-”

“I never asked for that, Fitz!” She said, furiously. “I never wanted anyone to die for me!”

“I’m sorry.” He choked out. Fat tears leaked out of his eyes. “Jemma, I’m so sorry-”

But she was shaking her head, eyes hurt and face paling, stepping back from him like he was diseased—like she was seeing him clearly for the first time. Fitz was suddenly transported to the night that they had first kissed, back to when they were seventeen years old and when he had followed her every footstep and chased her cherry lips all the way to her doorstep. They’d giggled and held each other like nothing could ever have broken them apart. Now she had a look of horror on her face as she stepped away. 

“Please, Jemma.” He tried again.

“Don’t.” Her voice was steel. “Just don’t.”

And with that she turned from him, and headed back the way she’d come. The same crowd that had parted like the Red Sea before her enveloped her now, until he couldn’t see her anymore. It was only then that Leopold James Fitz started to sob and gasp on the frozen Manhattan air, and that he truly felt all the tears on his face. A first responder finally made it over to him and wrapped him in a shiny, tin-foil looking blanket. Fitz was nearly hysterical. I’ve lost her, he thought miserably. 

Heartfelt piano music sparkled in the distance and Fitz was suddenly and forcefully reminded of the promise that he’d made over the dead body of Joseph Lee Tucker—his promise to do right by Jemma. Staggering to the sidewalk, his failure rose like bile in his throat and he fell to his knees and convulsed. A first responder placed a warm hand on his back as he vomited the shame and grief and cowardice from his body.

“It’s just shock,” one told him, comfortingly. 

They were wrong.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As always comments and kudos are appreciated!! Come hang out on tumblr @drdrdrfitzsimmons :)


	8. Broken Hearts

Walking Manhattan that night, Leopold James Fitz was technically only twenty four years, nine months, three weeks, two days, and nine minutes old, but he felt eons older. His hands were aching with cold and his body shivered with every breath, but he couldn’t bring himself to cross the crowded street and make his way back home. Home meant emptiness, and he carried enough of that around with him as it was. All around him, tourists and New Yorkers alike were joyfully playing in the new snowfall. He passed a chorus of Christmas carolers surrounded by a happy audience of people wrapped in thick-knit scarves and mittens, and he frowned. There were toys in every shop window, bright lights and tall trees with yellow stars at top, and an infectious merry spirit in the air that no one could ever ignore.

But he did. He ignored it with every cell in his body, and brooded and stewed in his misery for hours on end. He hated every couple that walked past him, hand in hand, with bright matching smiles and laden with Christmas shopping. He imagined Jemma wrapped in a colorful coat and scarf, clutching his arm and patting his shoulder to point out all of the sweetest sights. She’d love window shopping; he could just imagine the sappy look on her face when she saw the display in the Macy’s store window, pointing and grinning widely at all the little trinkets. She’d blow over the rim of her hot chocolate cup and giggle when he burned his tongue on his. They would stand before the massive tree at Rockefeller center, amidst the hordes of tourists and selfie sticks, and Fitz would whine as she would inevitably pull him out to the ice rink. But he’d finally give in, and the two of them would spend the next hour falling and slipping, clutching each other with laughter and imbalance, until they collapsed against the barrier and caught their breaths. With flushed faces, their giggles would subside and Fitz would look at the girl that he loved most in all the cosmos with her bright eyes and pink lips, and he’d pull her in for a kiss that would be mostly lipstick and smiles and snowflakes. His heart would almost feel like bursting as Jemma would pull away and nuzzle his face with her cold nose, affectionately. He’d laugh, a sound pulled from deep in his belly, and he’d lace his fingers through hers. Soon, he’d take her home and while she queued up a good movie to watch, he’d put her pajamas in the dryer so they’d be nice and warm when they finally settled down on the couch, her legs pulled up close to his chest. Maybe they’d both just fall asleep, or maybe they’d forget the movie entirely and she’d kiss his neck and pull on his bottom lip with her teeth and make him gasp in pleasure-- either way it would be better than how he felt now: cold and completely alone. 

But soon, he had to either go home or freeze to death. With shuffling feet he finally made it to his front step and with awkward icicle fingers he put the key in the lock and turned. The door opened into a silent house and a vein of dread flooded through him.

For four years, six days, nine hours, and thirty eight minutes, Fitz had welcomed the emptiness of his apartment, but now, with little hints of Jemma still hanging everywhere like holiday ornaments, he considered leaving again and not coming back— New York cold be damned. She’d left a bright yellow scarf on the coat rack, and a pair of cheetah print shoes by the front door. She’d hung twinkly lights on the ceiling a few days ago, but they weren’t turned on now and Fitz thought that it was morbidly poetic that his house was already darker without her in it. He toed off his shoes and walked in his socks to the kitchen. His tread was silent—not a single floorboard creaked. When Jemma walked, it was with clicking heels or rustling shawls or jazz music. He was silent. Moving to the fridge, he ignored the chicken and rice leftovers from the night before and went for a can of soup in the cupboard instead. Deep down, he knew he couldn’t enjoy whatever he ate now, not with worry and shame gnawing on his stomach like wild animals. Without her, everything would taste grey. 

It was only when he pulled a pot from the cabinet and set it on the stove that he heard a sniff from the bathroom. He stood up straight. “Jemma?” He called, and his voice echoed through the house off of the wooden floors and empty rooms. He walked quietly along the hallway until he reached the door. There was a sliver of light from under the door and he put his forehead on the wood and knocked quietly with his knuckle. “Jemma?” He asked, quietly. “Are you in there?”

She didn’t answer, but he had his anyway. Worry about her safety washed away like footsteps in the ocean sand, leaving only thoughts of her. “Have you eaten?” He asked, ignoring the white elephant of their rift hanging in the air. 

Silence replied to him.

“I’m making soup.” He told her through the door. “If you want some.”

Another quiet moment passed, and Fitz nodded sadly and walked back to the stove. He watched the little bubbles rise around the edge of the pot, and stirred until steam rose from the top. The silence pressed into his ears. He poured soup evenly into two mugs, and walked back to the bathroom and placed it outside the door. “If you want soup, it’s outside.” He told her. “I don’t want you to be hungry.”

As he made his way back down the hallway, he heard the lock unclick and the hallway brightened a little bit as the bathroom light poured out through the slightly open door. He didn’t need to look; he heard the scrape of the mug on the hardwood floor as she took it in the bathroom with her. “Thank you.” She said, thickly.

At the sound of her voice, Fitz closed his eyes. He didn’t know what he had expected, but the undeniable proof that she was still there made him warm from the inside out. Once she had closed herself back in the room, he decided to sit outside the door with his own mug, knees pulled up to his chest and taking little scalding sips. He wondered if she was crying, her back to the other side-- a hopeless mirror image to him now. 

“I’m sorry.” He said, quietly when the words couldn’t stay unspoken anymore. They fell from him like multicolored leaves from a sycamore tree in the fall; each one came a little easier, a little quicker. “I should have told you. But I was so afraid.” Voice cracking and tears welling in the corners of his eyes, he forced himself to continue. Gathering all the courage he had, he closed his eyes and leaned his head against the door. “Did I ever tell you about how I found out about my powers?”

She said nothing, but he knew she listened. 

“I was ten. My dog died right in front of me. I reached down and touched him and he came back to life-- I thought it was a miracle. Thought I was a superhero or something.” Fitz continued to tell her the story of how he’d come home and how his father had suddenly died. “I brought him back too. Thought everything would be fine. It was only after that I realized . . . your father was dead.”

Fitz tried not to imagine the horror on Jemma’s face inside the bathroom, nor the bubbly anger that was surely boiling inside of her. Still, the image flooded him and he winced. 

“I didn’t know how, but I knew it was my fault. I could hardly stand to look at you after that. I would just feel . . . such guilt.” Fitz told her. There were tears running down his face now, but part of him was lightening without the weight of his secret pressing on his stomach. “Didn’t even mean anything in the end; my dad touched me later that night and he died. I couldn’t bring him back again.”

As fresh as the day it had happened and as cold as ice water, Fitz felt the horror of seeing his father dead and blue on the floor. He could hear the thud his head had made as it had hit the ground. He cleared his throat to banish away the pain that rose in his chest. “Anyway, I stopped being a kid that day. But then there was you. You were . . .” He paused to think of the right word that could match her brilliance and found a smile creeping onto his face despite the gravity of his confession. He saw her, bright and cheery in his mind’s eye. “Incredible. You always smiled, laughed-- you wore bright colors and you were so beautiful, even then.”

Closing his eyes, Fitz remembered seeing her when he was seventeen, with bubble gum pink nails and sparkly cheeks. How she’d helped him up and smiled at him. “And when you kissed me, it was like everything was going to be okay as long as you were there. I never wanted . . .”

Behind the door, he heard her sniff. 

“I never wanted to hurt you.” He managed with streaming eyes. “When I heard that you’d . . . that you’d died, I just couldn’t let you stay dead. I just wanted you to be okay. I wasn’t thinking of anything else that day, except you. Jemma, I’m so, so sorry.” 

Speech done and vision blurred with tears, Fitz struggled to his feet and managed one steadying breath. “Just make sure you finish the soup, okay? It’s been a long day.”

As he walked back down the hallway to the kitchen, he heard the door unlatch and he turned to see Jemma emerging from the bathroom, red eyed and sniffling. He’d never seen her look so small; she wore a simple t-shirt and grey sweatpants, and her hair was up in a messy brown bun at the crown of her head. She wore no makeup, no bright colors, and she wasn’t smiling. She looked so human and raw that his heart ached, and he wanted to pull her into his chest and kiss the crown of her head. “Jemma-”

“I remember you.” She said quietly. Her voice was nasally from tears; it sounded like she had a head cold. “From when we were kids. Your ears stuck out a bit and you always wore the jumpers that your mum knit, even if they were horrible. One time I accidentally kicked a ball into the bushes by your house, and you crawled in on your hands and knees to get it back for me. When you came out, you were covered in dirt and you had sticks in your hair . . . you blushed crimson.”

Fitz felt like his heart was expanding in his chest to the size of the moon. She remembered him. Not just his kisses and the fact that he hadn’t called. She remembered him in vivid detail and his heart swelled. 

“You walked me home from school when my dad couldn’t pick me up. When I was seventeen and feeling so alone, you kissed me and looked at me like I meant something. And when I died, you brought me back.” She told him thickly. “I’m angry, Fitz. I’m angry that my father is dead and I’m angry that you lied and that you hid the truth from me. But even when you didn’t have to be, you were there for me. I know you didn’t mean to hurt me. So I . . . I forgive you.”

“What?” He breathed, too surprised to feel grateful. 

“You mean a lot to me. Not just because you brought me back.” She said, eyes downcast. He watched two tears roll silently down her cheeks. “You always have. I’m angry, but it doesn’t change that.”

Gasping for air out of sheer relief, Fitz felt the tears pour down his cheeks without stopping. His head was dizzy with love for her. “Okay.” He managed to choke out. “Will you stay?”

She nodded and a tear fell off the tip of her nose. “I’ll stay.”

In the midst of it all, Fitz managed a miniscule smile. “Okay. Good.”

She didn’t smile back at him, but if he was honest with himself he didn’t expect her to. He was baffled that she was even still there, standing in front of him. That was enough.

“Jemma?” He asked. 

“Yeah?”

“You mean a lot to me too.”


	9. Falling in Love

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just fair warning, this chapter brings this fic firmly into the M rating territory ;)

Forgiveness came slowly, like a flower blooming from the frosty winter earth. Some days Jemma would scarcely speak to him, and those days were horrible. Fitz was a tenured professor in loneliness-- he’d been so ever since he had been seventeen years old. But he soon figured out that his youthful self-selected quiet was better than the crushing silence of sitting beside the ethereal girl who didn’t want to talk to him. Loneliness in her company was a blue feeling that poured out of him in streams, each flood of a deeper, darker, stormier hue than the last. He hadn’t known that it was possible to miss someone who was sitting so close. 

Other days she would talk to him. Her voice would fill up his apartment like a glass of orange juice, bringing color and light and flavor into everything she touched. Her songbird laugh would fill the empty spaces in his heart and he would kid himself into thinking that the worst was over-- that the storm had passed. Then something would remind her of her father or the day that everything had fractured into pieces between them, and she would fall silent. The colors would run off the walls and clouds would cover the sun and he would be reminded that winter never ended in New York City. Those days were worse than horrible. 

But she stayed. And there was some comfort in that.

His former lab was a charcoal crisp on West 54th. The company moved them, temporarily, to another lab in the city with phosphorescent lights that hummed like beehives and sported broken clocks on off-white walls. He didn’t get much work done there; everyday, police officers came in to question the surviving lab technicians and mechanics about the explosion. None of them found satisfactory answers. Most baffling about the case was a lack of any kind of explosive casing or ignition source. They asked Fitz to explain to them how such things could be possible. But he replied with resigned honesty that he didn’t know. If he had tried, he might have been able to puzzle out a solution. But he was preoccupied with the brown eyed secret that lived in his apartment. When Fitz was questioned he didn’t mention Jemma for fear that she and her falsified documents could be discovered, and he only offered small kernels of information until the dark eyed man with a five o’clock shadow dismissed him to fiddle with his machines. 

But Jemma was as unpredictable as the wind, and when he mentioned the questioning to her in passing, she marched straight down to the police station on East 67th street and told them everything she had seen. She told Fitz (rather angrily) that she didn’t care if she was discovered-- the families of the victims deserved closure and she would give it to them, even if he refused to. Filling with pride and exasperation, he apologized. He was always apologizing now. 

Armed with the information that Jemma had provided about the crime scene, the police officers and detectives finally found a peephole into the explosion. The facts were these: three underpaid and undervalued lab technicians with fancy degrees had decided that they deserved recognition for their work on a controversial genetic engineering project called Centipede. They’d had several successful tests on lab rats (and more than a few catastrophic failures) to create super strength. HQ thought that their results were inconclusive and refused to fund the project further until they could stabilize the serum. Angry and drunk on hubris, the lab technicians had thrown all scientific methods out the window and had tested the serum on themselves, wanting to prove once and for all that they were brilliant and deserving of all praise. It was so unstable that the lab technicians all exploded from the inside out like Independence Day fireworks; the man who had hovered and had looked like a demonic possession went first, the lab tech who had pulled on his sleeve came second, and another in the corner of the room who had watched with terrified eyes had gone last. The explosion had rattled the drywall in the basement. 

The story hit the New York Times on the front page, and the journalists used Jemma’s full name in size eleven Arial font. When he first read it, his fingers turned white and he started trembling like a hooker’s phone on vibrate. Jemma, however, didn’t mind in the slightest. When he brandished it before her eyes as she made dinner, she rolled her eyes, “Really, Fitz, you’re overreacting.”

“The New York Times, Jemma!” He emphasized. “Do you know how many people read this newspaper?”

“Ugh, Fitz. Of course I do.” She replied. “No one will know that it’s me. I’m only mentioned once.”

“Your full name is mentioned. If someone from home reads it-” Began Fitz.

“There’s more than one Jemma Simmons in the world-”

“Not a lot who have been murdered and come back to life, though, I bet. This was dangerous, Jemma-”

“Relax, will you?” She told him, rolling her eyes so far back that he would have bet that she could have seen her own brain. “It’ll be fine.”

She finished chopping tomatoes, and tipped them into a bowl. On the stove, fresh bread was frying in olive oil, and the whole room smelled like basil and balsamic vinegar. They had jazz playing on their bluetooth speaker, and on the whole, it was one of their good days-- it was the first day that they had opened their windows since winter. It was almost spring now; the cherry trees in Central Park were a delightful pastel pink and Fitz hadn’t worn his snow boots in weeks. “Fine.” He gave up, laying the paper on the countertop. “I’m just worried is all.”

“You don’t have to be.” She promised him. Dipping her finger into her food, she hummed with delight and proclaimed it to be a masterpiece. He watched as she put the tomatoes and garlic and onions on top of the bread, then spurred himself to action. From the cupboards he pulled out the red plates that she’d bought a few weeks previous, and then placed two wine glasses neatly on the table beside them. Small moments like these would have been a mystery to Fitz a few months ago; he’d never really set the table, never eaten bruschetta, never even considered listening to smooth jazz before Jemma. Now, the easy rhythm of helping out around the house and cooking and cleaning was second nature to him; they were a team now. Together, they both settled down at the table across from each other, and Fitz cracked pepper on their food while Jemma poured the wine.

“So how’d the pitch for funding go today?” Jemma asked, biting into her bread. 

“Well. They loved the drones.” Answered Fitz. “They said it was a ‘scientific breakthrough’ and one that they’d be ‘happy to fund’” He made air quotes with his fingers. 

“Of course they did.” She smiled. “You’re brilliant.”

They launched into conversation that was as easy and natural as the sunrise that colored their walls in the mornings. They ate with their hands and drank and smiled, and he asked her about her day and listened. She had started looking for employment, and was hopeful that she’d find something in the next few weeks. The sun set over the massive skyscrapers, turning the light inside the house a pleasant orangey pink as they talked. The first stars blinked into existence and they kept talking. It was definitely one of their good days. 

It was so good, in fact, that their wine ran out before their conversation did. They piled their dishes into the sink after they’d finished and Jemma disappeared from the room for a few minutes only to return later wearing her matching pink pajamas. Fitz grinned at the sight. In her hands, she held another bottle of wine and her mischievous little smile at his futile resistance was verging on devilish. The wine made a delightful sound as the cork squeaked out of the neck, and it glugged as it poured, surging forward in a tide of crimson. Sipping in between bright smiles, the taste on Fitz’s tongue was smooth and sweet, and it warmed him from the inside out. He could feel his face reddening as he saw hers, flushed just like his own from alcohol and good times; they felt like teenagers under the influence. Smiling with an easy grace, she rolled the stem of her wine glass between her fingers and talked with a high voice that rang with joy. Stretched lazily out on the fluffy throw carpet by their couch, she exuded a rosy glow of pure relaxation and laughed with closed eyes and bright cheeks. He was equally peaceful; the moon was high in the sky and he had never loved anything as much as he loved her in that moment.

Soon she took her hair out of her ponytail, pulling the elastic out with two hooked fingers, and it floated down her shoulders in a soft brown curtain like one at the end of a play. She was talking about things that fascinated him, all the while smiling brightly, but she had swept her hair to one side and her pyjama shirt had slipped low on her shoulder, exposing her collarbone. As his eyes fell upon her skin, Fitz suddenly began to realize that his mind was wandering to places that it ought not be, unfiltered as it might have been before their glasses of wine. His thoughts made him blush but it wasn’t due to the drinks, and he couldn’t even pretend that it was-- even to himself. He was merely comfortable. Relaxed. Relaxed from wine and so, so glad that they were friends again, all the feelings that he’d pretended hadn’t existed hovered to the top of his thoughts like carbonated bubbles, and the unconscious (though not wholly unwelcome) thought of his lips on her neck was positively stupefying. He looked at the wineglass in his hands, and rolled it between his fingers, willing himself to forget it. 

“-that there’s no standard for points of reference. So if photons can only travel at the speed of light then it doesn’t matter how large--what?” She asked, furrowing her brows and looking at him. “You don’t agree?”

“No.” He shook his head. “I do. Wholeheartedly.”

“Good. Because if you could disprove Einstein’s theory of special relativity, we wouldn’t be sitting in this tiny apartment.” She laughed. “We’d be on holiday in Majorca. Or the Seychelles.” 

“Hm. That does sound nice. I’ll disprove it tomorrow.” Stretching, he looked at the clock on their wall. It was near two in the morning. “Or today, rather. Blimey.”

“Penny for your thoughts?” She asked. 

He didn’t dare answer. He’d been mumbling, dazed, and she knew it. But if she knew what he was truly thinking, she’d surely be horrified. Some things, like images of cupping her breasts in his hands and watching her head tilt back with a smile, were better left unsaid. He shook his head. “Nothing. Tired.” 

“You’re looking at me funny.” She told him, cocking her chin. “You’re a million miles away.”

“Sorry.” He apologized, glancing at his hands. But his gaze flickered back up to hers, and he found it incredibly difficult to look away again. Like an old fashioned newsreel, images of Jemma decidedly less clothed than she was now, sighing into his ear with pleasure, flashed before his eyelids. He told himself firmly that it was merely the consequence of the peace of the night, coupled with the relaxed rosy feeling in his veins that accompanied red wine--nothing more. Still, he could see her so clearly in his mind’s eye: her mouth slightly open and lips pink, whispering his name into his neck as he moaned into hers. He had to close his eyes to brandish it; that was no way to be thinking about Jemma, especially under the circumstances. 

She narrowed her eyes playfully, then wordlessly raised her own wineglass to her lips. Mirroring her, he did the same and for the first time all night, a soft quiet fell over the both of them. Outside their windows, he could hear cars driving past and the honks of a never-sleeping city in the distance. Drunken voices joined the clamor from below, their words indistinct and joyful. The moon was so bright in the sky that they hardly needed their living room lamps, and it filled the space with a pale white light that reflected off the hardwood floors. As their curtains billowed in a draft, Fitz thought how it would have been the perfect night if he could have only slowed the sinful drumming of his heart. He wanted to kick himself for ruining it. 

“Well, now you’re not looking at me at all. What is it, Fitz?” She asked, exasperatedly. “Do I have something in my teeth?”

“No.”

“My hair, then.” She wondered. 

“No. Nothing.” He promised.

“Well,” she said, after considering him for a moment, “you’ve got something in yours. Fuzz, I think.”

He ran his hands through his curls, but felt nothing. 

Jemma rolled her eyes. “To the left. No, my left. Higher, no-- too high, oh for God’s sake, let me.”

She scooted across the floor towards him and reached out, and Fitz nearly bent himself backwards trying to avoid her hand. “Have you gone mad?” He asked, a crick already forming in his neck as he did the limbo under her arm. “You can’t touch me, remember?”

“Yes, Fitz, I remember.” She told him. “But it really is bothering me-”

“No touching or you’ll be dead in a second-”

“It’s just your hair.” She emphasized. “I won’t touch anything else. Hair is all dead cells anyway, it can’t hurt me. Stay still, will you?”

Sighing, he went utterly and completely still. She smiled in triumph, then sat up on her knees and bent over him, taking her lower lip in her mouth as she concentrated. He felt the tips of his hair ruffle under her fingers, and it caused goosebumps to erupt on his neck and up his arms. She was so close to him that he could count the freckles on her skin and smell the perfume that she wore on her wrists. With his back against the couch and legs stretched out in front of him, she had a slight advantage over him heightwise, and as such he was terrifyingly and incredibly close to her breasts. He had to squeeze his eyes shut to stop himself from staring at them. Jemma, either scheming or blissfully ignorant, took ages.

“Got it.” She told him finally, and opening one eye slightly he saw a piece of fuzz float to the floor like a snowflake on a breeze. But she didn’t move away. In fact, as she settled to the ground on her heels, she seemed to sway tantalizingly closer. 

“Jemma, what’re you-” He began.

“Shh.” She said, quietly. “Stay still.”

He did. If amber, the kind that petrified dragonflies for thousands of years, had suddenly filled the room, he wouldn’t have known-- he was frozen anyway. Terrified that any movement could kill her, but also aching to be closer to her still, Fitz just closed his eyes and breathed. Though she didn’t touch him, she leaned in and he began to feel her everywhere. Her breath on his neck warmed his skin and he felt the hair on his arms rise as she moved closer. His skin tingled as she moved up to his ear, so close that he could almost hear her heartbeat. Then she started to sigh-- a sound that he had only ever imagined coming from her. It was breathy and light, but every now and then her voice would catch slightly on an exhale and it would sound almost like a moan. His eyes fluttered closed, electricity sparking between each cell of his body. 

Suddenly he felt something touch him and his eyes shot open, instantly worried that he would see her drop to the floor. “Relax, Fitz.” She told him, calmly, as he jolted. “It’s just a blanket.”

“What are you doing?” He managed, his throat unusually dry.

“The blanket can touch you.” She explained, sounding out of breath. “I can’t. Trust me.”

He did, implicitly and in explicit situations. Eyes glued to each other’s, Fitz saw the blanket clutched in Jemma’s hand in his peripheral vision and his heart pounded faster the closer it came. When it finally touched his skin, he let out a sigh that ruffled his bones on the way out and caused him to relax fully into the couch cushions. He heard her chuckle under her breath at him, but he couldn’t bring himself to care. Lovingly and achingly slowly, she traced the blanket up and down his neck and across his collarbone, over his lips and cheeks. Eyes fluttering shut, he imagined it was her lips ghosting across his skin and under his jaw, sweetly tasting him. It crossed over his lips again and Fitz found that his hands were clutching the carpet underneath him, knuckles white. He could hardly stop himself from leaning closer into her touch. He ached for her deep in his chest, and it surprised him slightly when he realized that that ache had been there for weeks. Or years. Forever, really. Seeing how affected he was becoming, Jemma leaned in to him, and came so close to his lips that he could feel her breath on his and his heartbeat spiked as he stopped cold. 

“You’re flirting with death.” He managed, trying not to move.

“Am not.” She corrected him, breath fanning over his. “I’m flirting with you.” 

“Same difference, in our case.” He stuttered, as her lips came dangerously close to his again. His mouth was unconsciously following every move that she made.

“I want you.” She whispered, as if she hadn’t heard a thing he had said. “I know I can’t, but-”

“I want you too.” He answered, honestly and immediately, squeezing his eyes shut and reveling in the unfairness of it. “So much.”

“It’s unfair.” She said, mirroring his thoughts and sounding quietly devastated. She leaned in close, and he followed her lips with his own. “I just want to touch you.”

“We can’t.”

“I know.”

A beat passed. Both of them leaned in and chased each other’s lips, watching each other with half-opened eyes and flushed cheeks. Fitz’s heart was hammering and he could see the steady thump of her heart beneath her ribs. He could see her tongue as she took it between her teeth, watching him. It was intoxicating to be desired-- no one had ever looked at Fitz the way Jemma was now, with an all encompassing joy and a hunger, with just a hint of sadness. 

“Maybe . . .” Jemma wondered aloud, leaning away from him slightly, her voice teasingly low. “We could touch ourselves.”

The engine inside him stuttered to a stall, and his mouth swung open at the hinges. He thought that perhaps a blood vessel had finally broken in his brain, or that perhaps he was suffering from acute inebriation. He could feel his heartbeat in his lips and he could have heard a pin drop from a mile away, his senses were so heightened. Maybe he was dreaming or maybe he was dead and this was heaven. “You-- we… what?”

“You heard me.” Jemma said, sounding thoroughly unembarrassed, and leaning closer again. “Don’t tell me you haven’t thought about it.”

“I have.” His eyes fluttered closed as the images swarmed him like a million butterfly wings: her fingers tracing the outline of her nipples through her bra. Her pursed lips. The sighs she would let out and the swivel of her hips against the heel of her palm. The words fell out of his mouth faster than he could stop them. “I’ve thought about it a lot. But-”

“I have too.” She told him. 

He swallowed, his heart pounding one thousand beats per minute. 

“Fitz, if I could,” she whispered into the curve of his ear, “I’d have you right here.”

“Would you?” His breath caught in his chest as the images flooded him. 

She hummed and trailed the blanket across his mouth. He canted his jaw up to meet it. Her voice was low, playful. Dangerous. “I’d kiss those lips. The ones I’ve been dreaming about since I was seventeen. Pull on them gently with my teeth, soothing the sting with my tongue. I’d run it over yours over and over until you started to make those little moaning noises you made then.”

“Did not.”

“Did too.” She grinned, tracing the blanket wordlessly down his chest, letting the suspension build, and though he still wore a shirt, he felt his skin burn where she had touched him. He felt branded by her and all that she was, and quietly thought that he wouldn’t have had it any other way. 

“I’d kiss your neck. Under your jaw. I’d feel your stubble under my fingers and then trail my tongue over your earlobe.” The blanket followed her commands, and it hardly took any imagination at all to feel her lips on his skin, and the soft tingle of pure feeling flooded his body. He felt his insides clench up and tighten, and a familiar ache had begun to build below his navel.

“Jemma-”

“Take off your shirt.” She told him, her voice husky. 

He did, scrambling to get it over his head. Once it was off, he tossed it to the corner of the room, and she looked at him with a hunger that he’d never seen before. She trailed the blanket to his breastbone, his collarbone, his neck. “I’d kiss you here. Here. Here.”

“God.” He moaned, unable to resist touching himself there, pretending his fingers were her lips. It lit him up like wildfire. 

“I’d kiss down your chest, taking my time.” She promised him, moving the blanket lower. It ruffled the dark line of hair on his stomach. “I’d run my fingers down your skin, my nails scraping just a little bit. And then-” Her words fumbled to a stop as she watched his hand reach the bulge at his crotch, and began palming himself through his jeans. 

“Then?” He gasped. 

“Then it’s your turn.” She grinned, eyes dark. 

He hardly missed a beat. He took the blanket from her, careful to avoid her hands. Had he never noticed how long and slender they were before? The image of those hands grabbing into his hips and scratching down his back caused a sigh to escape his lips. “I’d kiss you.” He told her, leaning in close, watching her eyes darken. He mirrored what she had done with the blanket. “With an open mouth. I’d feel your tongue on mine, and I’d taste the wine that we’ve been drinking. Maybe I’d take another sip, just so that the taste would be stronger. I’d suck at the spot just under your jaw, here, and you’d turn your head to the side so I could reach it better.”

Her head turned into the soft cloth, nuzzling it. Goosebumps rose on her skin as he watched. Then her hands slid up the side of her neck and traced along her skin, brushing the blanket away. He tossed it wordlessly to the side, and his eyes followed her movements hungrily. She was mimicking his words with her hands, and Fitz thought that his heart might just beat out of his chest. He felt privileged to see her so relaxed, honored to make her feel so loved. He pushed back his hopelessly romantic thoughts, and pressed on. 

“Then I’d suck just a little harder. You’d clutch at my shoulder and sigh as my tongue grazed over it, soothing it gently. Then I’d move my hands lower . . . lightly down your chest until they traced over your breasts.” Their eyes met for a moment and Fitz felt a jolt go through him. She didn’t look away as her hands cupped herself, squeezing lightly. 

“You’d arch your back up to get me closer, but I’d start unbuttoning your shirt-- one at a time, all the while kissing you deeply.”

He could only watch as her fingers pushed each button through its hole until none remained undone. Sliding the pink fabric off her shoulders, she tossed the shirt to the side to where it joined his. “There.” She said, and her voice was the most intriguing rich sound he’d ever heard. 

For a moment their spell broke. Lust gave way to utter speechlessness as he took her in. Her chest was heaving, like his was, and her hair fell in gentle curls all around her face, making her look softer than velvet. Her eyes shone, the normal honey-brown replaced with something dark and wonderful. On her cheeks there was an apple of color, but whether from lust or from alcohol, Fitz didn’t know. All he did know, in the whole world it seemed, was that she was by all accounts the loveliest thing he’d ever seen. The moonlight from the window reflected off her skin, but he could see a dusting of freckles across her chest and shoulders that looked like cinnamon. The lacy bra she wore was deep red, the same color as their hastily discarded wine, and it matched the color of her lips as she pursed them. Wine, he realized, would always remind him of her after this night. And he didn’t mind it one bit. 

“I’d start to touch you,” he began again, voice low and accent rolling thickly on the words. He raised himself to his knees and began to crawl closer to her and she grinned at the sound of his voice. He made sure to emphasize his accent as he continued. “I’d squeeze your breasts in my hands. And you’d lean into them, feeling how warm they were against your skin. Then I’d run two fingers down them, and trace the outline of your nipple through your bra, and feel it get hard under me. The feeling would be intense, and you’d sigh my name-”

“Fitz.” She moaned. 

It was almost too much; the sight of her rubbing her fingers across her breasts was enough to incapacitate him on a good day, but with her rosy lips mouthing his name, it was almost enough to make him explode. 

“Yeah.” He stuttered. “Like that.”

“Keep going.” She told him, closing her eyes. 

“I’d unclasp your bra behind your back.” He continued, heart pounding in his throat. “And you’d settle over my lap, grinding against me. Your hands would be in my hair, pulling just a little bit. Just little tugs, not enough to really hurt. Slowly, I’d lower my mouth to your nipple and swirl my tongue around it.”

Jemma had done as he’d said, and was now half-naked in front of him, her bra laying on the floor. She sucked on her fingers and lowered them to her breast, and Fitz almost couldn’t believe that she was imagining him, his mouth, on her. At her touch, she began to moan and the sound ripped through him like wind, ruffling all of his senses like little pieces of paper in a storm. He lowered his hand back to his crotch and began to grind against himself again, unable to wait any longer. 

“I’d pull your pants off.” He groaned, electrified by the feelings spreading through his body that danced along his skin. “And I’d trail my fingers up and down your panties. They’re-”

“Wet.” She breathed. “Can hardly get them off.” 

“God.” He said, closing his eyes. When he opened them, she was tracing her fingers across her warmth, cheeks flushed with color. Her gaze fell to his crotch, the outline of his cock unmistakeable through his pants. 

“Are you hard?” She asked.

“Yeah.” He told her, leaning his head back on the couch cushions. 

“Touch yourself, Fitz.” She told him, sighing as her fingers traced up to the sensitive apex of her thighs. She still wore her panties but he could see the dark spot where the fabric clung to her. “I want to watch you.”

With feelings more powerful and natural than dark ocean waves, Fitz made dazed eye contact with Jemma and he slowly pulled the zipper down his pants, unable to form a single coherent thought at the look in her dark eyes. He watched her chest rise and fall as he pulled them off, and even her lips looked flushed as she took her lower one between her teeth. Her nipple pebbled under her fingers, and he slipped his hand under his boxers and wrapped it around himself, his hips canting forward unconsciously. “Oh.” She breathed, face going slightly slack as she ground against the heel of her hand. 

He moved his hand up and down his cock, twisting slightly as he reached the top. He was imagining her, thrusting into her slowly and deeply, and making her feel it all the way to her toes. His eyebrows furrowed and his lips parted, and he soon realized that his breath was coming in short pants. “Jemma-”

“Don’t stop.” She instructed.

He didn’t, running his thumb across the tip and biting his lip as the feeling flooded his body. Eyelids fluttering open from where they had closed, he looked to Jemma and saw that she had managed to take off her panties and was touching herself right alongside him. He felt his chest flush as he looked at the way she arched her head back and sighed, her fingers working her clit and hips writhing in time with her touches. He wanted to memorize every sound, every movement, and every breath that she took. 

“Jemma, I’m-” He managed to mutter, his voice catching in a moan.

“Me too.” She promised him, breathily. “Come for me, Fitz.”

And he did. Looking at Jemma, so affected, touching herself and laying naked on his living room floor, he found it wasn’t that difficult in the end. He imagined her on top of him, one hand on his chest as she ground against him, breasts bouncing slowly and mouth halfway open. With a final twist of his hand, he was sighing and his release was hot and sticky on his hands. 

She followed close behind, with lidded eyes and a moan that sounded like it was ripped from deep within her. Her movements slowed and she ground slowly and gently against herself, until her eyes fluttered closed and she lay her head back against the couch cushions, her heartbeat heavy enough that he could see it in her chest. After a few moments, his breathing slowed and he glanced her way, finding her eyes already on his. Like a sunrise, her smile began slowly, then was suddenly so colorful and bright that he felt the Earth spin beneath him. He found the three little words forming on his lips, but bit his tongue hard so that he wouldn’t say them. They were drunk and their bodies were drumming with hormones. She deserved those words, and she’d get them, but not until the timing was right. When she was surrounded by candlelight or ocean breezes, perhaps. When she would know that he meant it. But the thought was stubborn and it drummed with every heartbeat; I love you, I love you, I love you. With each breath, a little more than the last. 

She giggled then, and he joined in. Soon, the quiet room was filled with the sweet sound of their unbridled joy, and Fitz felt his body relax to the point of exhaustion. “Fitz,” She chuckled, “That was incredible.”

“Yeah.” He agreed. 

“I’m going to sleep forever.”

He laughed. “Me too. Might just start now.”

“We have to get cleaned up first.” She reminded him. 

He sighed. “Fine.”

Then the room got quiet again and he looked at the pile of their clothes on the floor crossed with streaks of moonlight and the light smile on her face, and he felt his heart flutter in his chest. 

“We’ll be okay, you know.” Jemma promised him, as if she’d read his mind. “Even if we can’t be like everyone else.”

“I wouldn’t change us.”

“Yeah.” She agreed. “Me neither.”

The moon was bright over Manhattan and out in the concrete jungle, there was no doubt someone who was hurting and who was in pain. He was cursed. She was dead. But in their quiet little apartment, Leopold James Fitz found that he couldn’t bring himself to care about any of it. Focusing on anything other than the wonderful girl beside him was insanity. And she smiled knowingly at him, like she felt the same.


	10. Popping Bubbles

He slipped his earbuds in his ears, and closed his eyes as the music rolled through him. Leopold James Fitz, at age twenty four years, eleven months, eight days, nine hours, and thirty one minutes old, had never been much of a dancer. But as he walked the streets of Manhattan in the wee hours of the morning, there was sparkling dew on the grass and his breath rose in little cotton candy clouds around his lips, and suddenly he couldn’t stop himself from breaking into a smile and wiggling his shoulders to the sound of the music. He stepped to the beat, even though there were holes in his tired shoes and his fingers were cold. In his mind’s eye, cartoon birds twittered around his head and fluttered in front of him, and as he spun around a lamp post, he watched colorful flowers erupt forth from the ground and send sparkles into the air all around him. He had no beat, no rhythm, but none of it mattered. He tapped on his pants, ducked under construction workers bringing out the daily haul of two by fours, and danced as he walked.

He saw men with tattoos on their faces and sagging pants grin at him, and women laughed as he spun around them, pulling them in for one quick waltzing sway back and forth, before he turned and kept on his way. He was a honeybee in a field of dandelions, half-drunk on the color and the beauty that was his life now that Jemma was his. They’d finally agreed on it in the early morning, with the sun barely scraping the horizon. The sky had been the palest pink and there had been a soft quiet in Manhattan in the sweet hour before dawn, and she had rolled over on her shoulder and had looked at him. “You’ll be mine?” She’d asked him.

“I always have been.” He’d answered honestly.

Now he walked to work with his bag over his shoulder, unable to keep the grin from spreading across his face. He’d never felt a happiness that was so contagious before-- a man in a suit smiled at him while getting into a taxi, and Fitz narrowly missed running into a group of tourists with thick scarves. As he apologized and grinned, they pulled out their cell phones and recorded him dancing on their cameras, giggling at his infectious joy. He didn’t even mind-- all around him were blue skies and sunflowers, and little daisies pushing through the winter earth and sprouting before his very eyes.

He laughed. He actually laughed, and the burst of air colored the cold sky and he wondered if it was possible to explode from happiness. Jemma was his. He was hers. It was poetry come to life and he’d-- 

He suddenly collided into a man standing on the sidewalk. Fitz might have well have walked into an American football linebacker; the man barely even moved, and Fitz almost stumbled to the ground. Fitz shook his head, and pulled an earbud from his ear, expecting the man to yell at him as most New Yorkers were privy to doing. “Sorry.” He grinned, trying to stifle his joy enough to adeptly apologize. It felt disingenuous; he was still grinning from ear to ear. His shoulder ached where he had hit the man, and he rubbed it with his hand, fighting a happiness that had been twenty four years in the making.

The man was tall and strong, with a sharp jawline and dark eyes. As he turned to look at Fitz, his face darkened. The man’s chin was cleffed and it looked like he’d never even tried for a smile in his whole life. He had a copy of the New York Times clenched in his hand, and his voice was cold as a winter morning in Canada. “Watch where you’re going.” He said, his accent not at all like that of a New Yorker. 

“Sorry, mate.” Fitz said. He couldn’t fight it; he was still grinning. 

Fitz kept walking along his merry way and when he got to his new lab he smiled at everyone and wished them all a good morning. Someone asked if he was feeling well. “Never better.” He responded, taking out his reports. 

He continued in his sunny mood for the rest of the day. He wondered if this was how everyone felt when they were in love; every song on the radio reminded him of Jemma, and every hyperbole he’d ever read in books or in poems fell woefully short to how warm he felt inside at the very thought of her. She called him at lunchtime and they talked for half an hour, and he could hear her smile through the phone, and he knew that she was feeling just as light and rosy as he was. 

“See you tonight.” She told him, when he regretfully told her that he had to get back to work. 

“See you.”

When he walked back home, his mood still hadn’t dampened. It didn’t darken when he stepped in a muddy puddle, not when a taxi honked at him, not even when he’d missed his subway train by seconds. He was swept along in the immutable tide of love and when he reached his door his heart was filled with the promise of a whole night of her, her and her. 

Then his eyes found a paper dropped on his doorstep. As he pulled it out, he saw that it was the New York Times article that had been printed about the lab explosion. Circled in a thick red pen was Jemma’s name. 

The music in his heart stopped, and with fingers that were just then registering the blustery Manhattan cold, he reached down. Underneath the paper, there was a collection of black and white photos of Jemma going about her daily business, taken from afar. Surveillance photos, Fitz realized, his body going numb. On each picture, Jemma’s face was circled in red, and crossed off. On the back of one, was the simple message: found you.

His breath came in spurts as he shakily unlocked the door and stumbled in, the smell of meat and garlic sizzling in white wine greeting his senses. He barely registered it. It felt like the room was being pulled towards him, or perhaps his vision was widening and leaving him behind. There was blue everywhere that he had seen yellow before. He was terrified that he’d find an open window with a flowing curtain in an empty room, or worse-- he’d see her on the floor, unmoving.

“Jemma?” He called, praying for a response.

“Fitz? That you?”

“It’s me.” He answered, low and emotionless, relief flooding him so quickly he felt a bit light headed. 

She must have heard it in his voice. She rounded the corner to the kitchen, and was wiping her hands on a kitchen towel. “What is it? What’s wrong?”

In response, he threw the paper and the photos onto the dining room table and they landed with a thud. Wordlessly, Jemma floated towards them, and picked them up. He watched the color drain from her face. “These are me.” She whispered. “Fitz, where-”

“The doorstep.” He replied. 

“Who would do this?” She wondered aloud, hand going to her lips in shock.

“I don’t know. But you have to tell me everything.” He stepped closer. “Everything that you didn’t tell me before-”

“About what?” Asked Jemma.

He closed his eyes and the words spilled out. “About your murder.”

—————

Fitz called Hunter. He’d been working in Virginia on a case involving a secret affair of two famous politicians, but at the worry in Fitz’s voice, Hunter had caught the first train home and was in their apartment in a matter of hours without asking any questions. The last few weeks had given Fitz a newfound appreciation for Hunter’s loyalty, and he almost wondered if he deserved it. Hunter’s eyes narrowed as he looked at the newspaper and pictures, and Fitz paced back and forth on the hardwood floors while he waited for Hunter’s professional assessment. 

“Will you stop that?” Hunter said, looking to Fitz exasperatedly. “You’re making me nervous.”

“I’m already nervous!” Fitz exclaimed.

“Why? It’s not your face on here.” Hunter told him. Then he turned to Jemma, who was sitting on the couch, her legs crossed and brows furrowed. “For someone who’s got a target on their back, you’ve been pretty quiet, Jemma.” 

“I’m thinking.” She responded. 

“You have to tell us.” Fitz said, crossing the room and kneeling in front of her. “Whatever it is, we’ll fix it.”

“Fitz-”

“Fitz and I are pretty good together.” Hunter assured her. “We’ll keep you safe.”

She exhaled and it fluttered a loose tendril of hair on her cheeks. “Well then. I suppose I better start at the beginning.” She said.


	11. Jemma Simmons, biochemist.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Quick FYI, this chapter is almost entirely from Jemma’s POV, until the break at the end. I love a good flashback. Enjoy!

As Jemma walked into her new lab, even the lights seemed to shine with possibilities. She clutched a three ringed binder to her chest, and let out a tiny sigh of contentment at the busyness of it all. Such undiluted joy was usually reserved for children in candy stores, filling their pockets with sweets. But Jemma was brimming with joy and all the wonder in the world despite it. Just as she could derive neat formulas from incomprehensibly complex series of numbers and create vaccines from dormant antibodies, she could tell that she had finally found her calling. Around her, scientists in pristine white lab coats shot her quick smiles as they bustled about their stations, calling out to each other and scribbling on notepads. It was an orchestra of science and discovery; she couldn’t wait to be a part of it.

“You must be Jemma.” A voice said from behind her, and she turned her head and fixed a brilliant smile on her face.

The man who had spoken wasn’t one that she had met before, but she knew all about him. He was a world-renown chemist, and had personally rewritten the guidebook for the study of medicine. She felt a little dizzy as she reached out her hand, almost like she was meeting a movie star. “Dr. Jemma Simmons.” She said, proudly. “Biochemist.”

“Dr. John Garrett.” He extended his own hand and shook. “Pleasure to meet you.”

“I’m a big fan of your work.” She bubbled, unable to stop herself. “I wrote my dissertation on your research on stem cell regeneration and genetic coding.”

“I know.” He said, smiling widely. “I read it.”

She felt a jolt of excitement, and the grin on his face widened. He was in his early sixties, with salt and pepper hair combed over a growing bald spot. He had large hands that looked like they had personally saved millions of lives, and he crossed them over a large barrelled chest in a black turtleneck. “I think you’ll fit in well here, Dr. Simmons.” He told her, beginning to take long strides down the shining glass hallway. His voice was loud and gravelly. “We’re looking for smart minds like you. Problem solvers.”

“What is it exactly that I’ll be doing, sir?” She asked, excitedly. “The application was very vague-”

“Saving the world.” He said, simply, with just a hint of madness in his words. “Everyone in the lab has the same goal. I assume you’ve heard of the Erskine Program?” 

“Of course.” She stuttered. “Dr. Erskine created the serum that gave Steve Rogers super strength-”

“And then it was all destroyed. All records were burned, and we never found out how to recreate the results.” Garrett interrupted her, looking sour as they continued their walk down the hallway. “It was a medical tragedy. Imagine how many people could have been saved if the knowledge had been shared.”

“Thousands.” Said Jemma, sadly.

“Think bigger.” Garrett grinned. “Millions.”

The concept of having such a large impact on the world shook Jemma to the core and she felt a brilliant smile rising to her cheeks. She also felt like she needed to sit down.

Garrett noted this with a wink, then moved steadily on. “What you probably haven’t heard of is the T.A.H.I.T.I. Program.”

She shook her head, desperate to know more.

“It was a top secret procedure in the highest levels of government. It was said to bring dead people back to life.” He proclaimed, proudly. “There was at least one successful test subject, an agent of S.H.I.E.L.D. named Phil Coulson, but he has disappeared, along with all the other doctors that operated on him.”

“And the procedure?” Asked Jemma, hanging on his words.

“No one knows how it was possible. Everything vanished. No information whatsoever remains.” Garrett walked her to her new lab station, and turned around with a flourish. “So. Simply put, that’s our goal in this lab. I’m funding it all myself. We’re going to figure out what happened, and recreate the results. Think of all the lives it would save.”

“Millions.” Jemma glowed, repeating his words. 

“I’m hoping you can help.” Garrett said, grabbing her shoulders and giving them a squeeze. “Your paper on stem cell regeneration was the closest lead we’ve seen in years. Did wonders for the lab rats.”

“I won’t let you down, sir.” She promised him, already itching to start her research. 

“I know you won’t.” He nodded. “Any information you need to start is already downloaded onto your computer.”

He turned and walked off, waving to her as he left the room. There was a bubble in her chest that was fit to pop, and as she settled into her new space, she could barely contain her excitement. Though she was years younger than the other scientists beside her, she was aching to prove herself and she began her work that very same day, hardly looking up until night had fallen.   
\-------   
It was a full year of hard work later that she finally scrambled down the hallway and into Garrett’s office. She threw open the door, and he raised his eyes, almost like he had expected it. “I found it, sir.” She announced, breathlessly.

Garrett was on his feet in milliseconds. 

Unlike everyone else, who had been busy scrapping for tiny fragments of Phil Coulson’s DNA and hoping to unlock the secret to reincarnation in the genetic code of their only successful test subject, Jemma had dived right into the red tape of the high government agency that had saved the agent’s life in the first place. She got access to redacted documents, and even called in favors from friends she’d made at University, and slowly, piece by piece, the puzzle had come together. She’d managed to find the medical report of the agent, and had traced through it extensively to find anything out of place. She had missed the science terribly as she’d been tied up in bureaucratic red tape, but her efforts had been fruitful; everything in the reports had made sense, except for a miracle drug called GH-325 that had caused the agent’s cells to start regenerating in a matter of seconds. This was the lead. This was the loose end that would bring the end of disease and death across the world. She’d done it. 

Dr. Garrett was beside himself with joy. He pulled Jemma in for a hug and even kissed the top of her head, calling her a genius. In less than two hours, they were in a private jet with two other top tier scientists and headed for the secret facility wherein the agent had been treated. Though she hadn’t found the drug yet, she was sure that she would find clues there; at least she would be able to talk to the doctors who had operated on him. 

But when they touched down, however, the day got stranger and stranger. The lab was deserted, and deep within a mountain range in the middle of nowhere. The inside of the lab was like nothing she had ever seen before; the walls were metal and painted with what looked like yellow spray paint. The water filtration system dripped and the doors were heavy and armed with explosives. There was not a doctor in sight-- or anyone else, for that matter.

“I never thought it would be easy.” Garrett said, sounding almost joyful. “Lead on, Dr. Simmons.”

They searched the compound all day and all night. The other scientists fell asleep on the floor, but Jemma and Garrett kept looking, almost feverish in their shared intensity. Like an electric string between them, science and mad passion for truth united them. Then before long Jemma was alone in a room full of chemicals of various colors and shapes, and she knew she was close. She scanned the shelves, mouthing as she searched. 

Then, there it was. In a little blue vial behind a hazard symbol was the careful label: GH-325. She pulled open the cupboard and her hands were shaking as she pulled it out, awed and humbled by the idea that she held the ability to heal any sickness, to bring people back to life, in her hands. She didn’t hear Garrett enter the room behind her. 

“Is that it?” He asked, sounding dumbstruck.

“I think so.” She whispered, holding the vial up at eye level. 

“That’s a Nobel Prize in the bag for you.” He grinned, the low light casting eerie shadows on his face. His eyes were wide and unhinged. “Let me see.”

She handed it over, and he sighed as it touched his hands. “Almost five years of work to find you.” He mused, talking to the vial.

“You should probably lock it up, sir. From what I can see, it’s the only vial here.” Cautioned Jemma. “We’ll study it when we get back to Headquarters.”

“Too right you are.” He nodded, slipping it into his coat. “You and I are going to change the world, Dr. Simmons.”

She nodded, but for some reason, the joy that she had expected to feel tasted sour in her mouth. Something didn’t add up. And the blinking lights and stagnant air weren’t helping her think either. Garrett gestured with his head to the door. “You coming?” He asked.

She shook her head. “Just need a moment.” 

“Take your time.” He told her. “I’ll prep the jet for immediate takeoff. And don’t touch anything else. Who knows what this stuff does. We’ll send in a team in hazmat suits when we’ve got all of this cleared up.”

He turned from the room after she smiled weakly, and she could hear his cheery whistle echo against the cool metal walls. It was a sound that made the skin on her arms stand on end, and she suddenly felt very cold. Letting her gaze wander, she saw a marked door behind a box of medical supplies. Curious, she heaved the box away from the door and reached out to dust off the sign.

“T.A.H.I.T.I.” She read.

She pushed open the door and walked inside, shivering as the air temperature dropped in seconds. It was like a meat freezer inside, and there was frost clinging to the cold metal walls. She wandered past another cupboard of vials, this time feeling wholly uninterested. Her every breath clouded, bright white, in the air. Then, the strange sound of water flowing reached her ears and she frowned, her eyes crossing the room to the noise. 

There was a small metal capsule in the wall, no bigger than a Japanese hotel room, marked GH-325, and out from it snaked a couple of blue tubes glowing with a mysterious liquid. The haunting color was not unlike the bioluminescent glow of deep sea life, and as she neared it her skin began to shine like she was under a blacklight. Pressing a button, she watched as the capsule let out a hiss and a billow of steam as it slowly came out of the wall. She chanced a glance inside the capsule, and suddenly shuddered backwards so quickly that she stumbled on a tube and fell. Heels of her palms bleeding, she hurriedly got up and ran from the lab, feeling sufficiently spooked. Inside was an alien-- a real life alien, kept in a controlled stasis, with tubes coming out of it carrying its blood. The alien’s skin was blue; precisely the same color as the GH-325 formula that she’d just discovered. In a panic, she thought that the alien was probably Kree. But it didn’t matter; it was definitely dead and the GH-325 was its blood. 

She scrambled from the room and hurried back to where Garrett and the other scientists were packing up in a hurry. She’d seen what happened when alien biology mixed with human dna before, in an unfortunate incident in a past lab. That alien had been Chitauri, but the lesson remained. As she reached the others, she heard an alarm blazing overhead, and it filled the room with a bright red light every few seconds. “What’s happened?!” She asked.

“An alarm sounded, suddenly. Don’t know why, but this place is rigged to blow. We’ve gotta get out of here.” Garrett called to her, packing the GH-325 case and snapping it shut. 

Somehow, Jemma knew that the alarm had sounded when the capsule had come out of the wall. The compound had been built to protect the secret that she had just unwillingly discovered. Hurriedly, she pushed a strand of hair out of her face and said, “Sir, you can’t use the GH-325.”

He looked up at her, hands ceasing their movements. “You must be crazy.”

“I’ve just seen something.” She told him, heart pounding. “Sir, you have to believe me. I don’t know what it is, but you can’t use it-- it’s not safe.”

Rolling his eyes, he finished clasping his case and heaved it over his shoulder. “This is a talk for the plane. Okay? Right now we need to get out of here. It’s about to get really warm.”

He turned from her, and in a fit of madness Jemma reached forward and grabbed his case. She threw it across the floor and it slid into the darkness, just out of reach. His eyes widened. “Dear God, you have lost your mind.”

“Sir, please.” She emphasized, tears rising in her eyes. “You can’t-”

“You can’t tell me what to do.” His voice was icy cold. “I’ve worked too long for this-”

“Sir-”

“I slaved for years to find this cure! Millions of dollars, thousands of scientists just like you! You can’t take it from me now, I won’t let you.”

“Please, just leave it-”

The alarm was blaring so loudly that Jemma could hardly hear herself think. She barely managed to open her mouth again, when she heard a calm female voice over the speakers. “This facility will self destruct in twenty. . . nineteen. . . eighteen.”

With a crazed look in his eyes, Garrett bolted for the case, knocking her over as he pushed past. She fell to the ground and stumbled back up, running for the exit as fast as her feet could carry her. She had only one goal now: the glowing pinprick of light at the end of the staircase that meant safety. She heaved herself up the stairs, her legs on fire and lungs burning, without even bothering to look behind her. She could hear the woman’s cool robotic voice. “Fourteen. Thirteen.”

She made it to the top and ran as fast as she could. She saw the other two scientists on the ladder to the private jet, watching her with wide eyes, one of them getting the message and scrambling to the cockpit in order to get the plane airborne in time. Seconds later, as Jemma was flat-out sprinting, a massive explosion shook the very Earth beneath her feet. It sent Jemma toppling to the ground with incredible force that felt like it had ripped the mountain apart like an egg cracking on the side of a porcelain bowl. She hit her chin on the ground as the explosion rattled all of her bones and the shock crashed over her like a tsunami.

For a moment, everything was quiet. Her head spun. 

Then she felt someone’s arm on her own, and it heaved her up. Dazed and dizzy, Jemma barely registered that one of the other scientists had come back for her and was pulling her up the ladder to the jet. Her body bounced uncomfortably up each step, bruising her hips and ribs. Her ears were ringing and she soon felt the swooping in her stomach as the plane lifted into the air and set off. All she could hear was a high pitched noise that blinded out all other sounds, and her colleague was at face level with her. She read his lips. Garrett, he asked?

Her mouth felt like it was full of cotton. “Dead.”  
\----------

“Dead?” Hunter repeated, after she had finished her story. His voice was high and disbelieving, and his eyebrows had almost disappeared into his hairline.

“There’s no way he survived that explosion. And even if he did, we left him on that mountain in the middle of nowhere.” Jemma explained, clutching a pillow tightly in her hands. Fitz noticed that her knuckles were white, and wished that he could rub his thumb gently over them to relax her death grip.

“So you don’t think Garrett killed you?” Fitz asked, looking at her closely. 

“How could he have?” Jemma raised her miserable tear-stained eyes up to his. “I killed him. I should have just let him go after I found the alien in stasis. Or at least talked to him about it on the plane instead of acting like-”

“Hunter.” Fitz instructed him. “Give her a hug, will you?” 

Sighing dramatically, Hunter sat himself next to Jemma and folded her in a hug. It was like poking a water balloon with a pin; as soon as Hunter folded her into his arms, her small shoulders began shuddering with sobs, and tears started to run freely down her face. “I killed him.” She repeated, over and over, like a broken record. “I killed him-”

“You didn't kill him.” Fitz assured her, softly. “An explosion did-- if he’s even dead.”

“Dead, Fitz.” She said, trembling like a leaf and not hearing him in the slightest. “My fault-”

“Not your fault.” He said, firmly. “Trust me, I know.”

She sniffed, and Hunter took advantage of the quiet to look up at Fitz. “You think he did it, mate?” 

“I think it’s a good lead.” Decided Fitz. “Worth looking into, wouldn’t you-.”

“No.” Jemma’s small voice came up from the blanket she clutched, and her eyes were worried. They were dinner plates, wide with fear, and she shook her head so violently, he worried that it might fall off. “Fitz, you can’t.”

“Why not?” He asked.

“Yeah, Fitz and I will sort it all out.” Hunter added to his defense, kindly. “We’ve solved harder crimes than this before, love.”

“No.” She emphasized, looking back and forth between them, like they were a Wimbledon tennis match. “If anything happened to either of you-”

“Nothing will happen to us.” Fitz promised, kneeling down and looking her in the eyes. He watched as two fat tears rolled down her cheeks. 

“I can’t lose you too.” She gasped. “Not after everything else-”

“You won’t lose me.” He said firmly. “Hunter and I will find out how Garrett did this, and we’ll put him away for good. Okay? I promise.”

“Don’t make promises,” Jemma cautioned him, “that you can’t keep.”


	12. Two truths and a Fitznapping

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Some of the story begins to come together as they work to uncover the truth about Jemma's murder.

For precisely two days, nine hours, twelve minutes, and thirteen seconds, Leopold James Fitz and Lance Hunter investigated the murder of Jemma Anne Simmons, with her perched like a bird on the armrest of the couch, suggesting things and giving extra pieces of helpful information whenever she could. Soon, the pieces began to come together, like a video of a ceramic plate smashing in reversed slow motion, and all of them stepped back in sync to look upon the masterpiece that was their living room wall. 

It looked straight out of a crime show-- not a critically acclaimed one; more like one of the cheesy low-budget ones that played in gyms with the subtitles on. In a fit of lunacy, Hunter had gone to the store and had bought a colored printer, three pairs of kiddie scissors, a family sized box of thumbtacks, and enough red yarn to string them all up three times over. As they pushed pin after pin into the drywall, they got a little over-excited, and now to cross to the bathroom, they had to duck under thick bridges of red string and over piles and piles of paper.

“Is all this necessary?” Jemma asked, after having fallen to the floor like an ungraceful ice skater upon an unbalanced stack of newspaper articles. 

“Absolutely.” Hunter answered immediately. “Look how organized this is-”

“It’s a mess.” She raised an eyebrow.

“To you, maybe.” He mused, stepping forward with his fingers laced together like Sherlock Holmes. “But to me, it’s a tapestry of mystery, and I alone am the keeper of all the secrets-”

“Hunter.” Fitz looked up from his laptop, hardly listening. “Where’d you put that redacted file on the Guest House?”

Hunter opened his mouth like he was about to speak, then closed it foolishly, looking like a fish out of water. 

“Whatever happened to you being the keeper of all the secrets?” Jemma said stubbornly.

“Bugger off.” He rolled his eyes. 

“Tell me again.” Jemma sighed. “From the top.”

Both of them began to explain the zigzagged strings and files, the headshots taped to the maps of remote places, and the story of Dr. John Garrett sharpened into focus. Fitz pointed to a particularly unflattering image of the doctor as a young boy, with ill-fitting pants and a smudge of dirt on his nose. “Dr. John Garrett was born in Columbus, Ohio in 1955 to a poor working-class family.”

“Despite his Dickens-worthy upbringing, he was brilliant,” Hunter interjected. “His teachers thought the world of him, and tutored him after class. This one in particular.” Hunter pointed to an image of an ancient woman, with thick glasses and a lacy collar. “Mrs. Geraldine Lacy was incredibly important to him. She personally paid for his education until he could start paying her back.”

“But Mrs. Lacy was sick, and getting older. By the time Dr. Garrett got to University, she had been diagnosed with Alzheimer's and had no one to take care of her. He dedicated all of his time and research into finding a cure for her.”

“Unfortunately,” Hunter said, following after him, “it wasn’t enough to save her. His work was published in a medical journal though, and he received worldwide attention, money, resources, women. . . but was strangely never too keen on being in the public eye.”

“University records show,” Fitz spoke, pointing to a list of rented textbooks under Garrett’s name, “that he became obsessed with the idea of scientific reincarnation, and focused his following research mostly on the regenerative properties of stem cells.”

“Too bad he never met you, mate.” Hunter grinned, childishly. “Bet he’d have liked you.”

“He’d have put me under a microscope.” Fitz rolled his eyes. “Anyway, he gained a lot of notoriety for his work. A bunch of awards-”

“Yeah, what’s a Copley Medal? Is that more or less impressive than a Nobel Prize?” Hunter scrunched his eyebrows together.

“More specific.” Jemma explained, leaning over the couch.“It’s limited to advancement in science, but it’s still incredibly prestigious.”

“Well, he’s got both of them. I bet his trophy case back home was pretty impressive.” Fitz scanned a list of awards and certificates. “Then, after the Battle of New York, he found out about the T.A.H.I.T.I. Program through some medical contacts at S.H.I.E.L.D, and personally funded his own lab and team of scientists to uncover the secrets of the procedure.”

“It still doesn’t make sense.” Hunter scratched his head. “Why would he risk his life for this serum?”

 

“He wanted to save lives.” Jemma said. “I can relate.”

Grimacing in a smile, Hunter clicked his tongue. “Maybe. But no man I’ve ever met has had pure intentions. Not even your doctor friend. Hell, not even Fitz, and he’s the best man I know. He had a crush on you, love-”

“Hunter.” Fitz warned.

“Nevermind. All I’m saying is why else would he suddenly switch all of his research from stem cells to T.A.H.I.T.I? He was hiding something. I’m sure of it.” Hunter assured her. 

“But what?” Jemma asked. 

“Uh, guys?” Fitz stammered, looking up from his screen with a gobsmacked expression. “I think I know.”

They immediately rushed to his side, ducking under the red string. “What am I looking at?” Asked Hunter, scanning the screen.

“A blood test.” Jemma answered, breathless. “His white blood cell count was extremely low.”

“500 white blood cells per microliter.” Fitz agreed, awestruck. “How was he even standing?”

“And what does that mean?” Hunter asked, bewildered. “Mercenary here, mates. High school dropout.”

“Cancer.” Fitz said, simply. 

“He was dying.” Jemma whispered. “He was searching for a miracle.”

They let the information sink in. Then Hunter turned to Jemma, a half-smile on his cheeks. “Told you he wasn’t pure intentioned.”

“Why though? Why resort to T.A.H.I.T.I? Why not just go through chemotherapy-”

“He’d seen his childhood mentor go through a slow and horrible death.” Hunter reasoned. “I suppose he was prepared to do anything to stop that from happening to himself. Even murder you.”

They all looked over to a picture of Dr. John Garrett tacked to the wall, where he smiled in a black turtleneck with his arms across his chest. He looked happy and healthy, his smile not forced, and his eyes bright with excitement.

“Poor man.” Jemma whispered, quietly. “I almost feel bad for him.”

“I don’t.” Fitz announced, suddenly. “He had you murdered.”

“You don’t have proof of that yet.” Jemma reminded him. 

“Yet.” Fitz echoed. “But I will.”

“You never know,” Hunter said, easily, heading for the mini fridge and popping the tap to a can of beer that fizzed over the top. “There could be another wrinkle in this tale.”

“Yeah, like this.” Jemma pulled up a screen on her laptop and her mouth opened wide, eyes glazed over with surprise and wonder. “Does the name Wolfgang Von Strucker mean anything to you?”

“Did you say Von Strucker?” Hunter asked, hopping over the couch to join her, and spilling beer all over his shoes. 

Jemma hardly noticed. “I found a bunch of encrypted emails that went back and forth between Garrett and Von Strucker. It seems that Garrett was planning to sell the GH formula once he perfected it.” Jemma’s eyes scanned the screen as she read.

“That’s bad news bears.” Hunter said under his breath. “Von Strucker is famous among us mercs.”

“What for?”

“Recruitment. He takes the best and brightest mercs and hires them in his secret organization.” Hunter explained. “God knows what he has them do. But I’ve had mates wind up dead, go missing, or worse. I found one with cyanide bubbling out of his mouth and one of his teeth missing.”

Fitz scrunched his eyes at the unpleasant image. “So if Garrett was planning to sell to this Von Strucker guy, we should assume that there was financial motivation for Garrett to get the serum out of that lab, as well as personal motivation to cure his cancer. No wonder he fought so hard to keep it.”

“And worse.” Jemma said, darkly. “Money means that more people could know about the serum, which might widen the suspect list.”

Happily, Hunter took another sip of his beer and smiled. “The plot thickens.”

And the plot did. Hours later, Fitz was grabbed from behind as he emerged from his apartment for a routine grocery run. A cloth that reeked of chemicals was shoved in front of his mouth as he struggled. He wrenched at the arms that held him back, flailing like a fish out of water, then soon a blackness enveloped him and he didn’t see anything else.  
\--------  
When his head finally lolled off his shoulder and he blinked in the bright lights, the first thing Fitz registered was that he was drooling like a teething toddler. Dazed and lost, he moved to wipe it off of his chin, but found after some confused effort that his arm wouldn’t budge. He frowned, and the swimming room came slowly into clearer focus. He could see the silver duct tape that was wrapped tightly around his arms and legs, anchoring him to a wooden chair. As he blinked, fear rose steadily in his heart like bile. As far as he could tell, he was in a dimly lit warehouse, or some other large empty storage facility. Fitz could make out the faint outline of wooden boxes stacked on top of each other, and massive shapes that looked like container shipments in the distance. Whipping his head around, he didn’t see Jemma and managed a quiet breath of relief. If she wasn’t here, maybe she was safe. 

“You’re awake.” A cold voice spoke from above.

Fitz raised his head to the upper level of the warehouse, ignoring the pounding of his head, to where he could only make out the slight silhouette of a man, watching him carefully. He was backlit by industrial blue lighting, and Fitz saw thick metal chains hanging like jungle vines all around him. He looked incredibly ominous, like a cartoon villain. He thought he heard a pipe drop to the floor in the distance, and the tap tap of a broken water main behind them, but all of Fitz’s concentration had focused to a point: to the threatening outline of the man who watched him like a hawk. At Fitz’s unenthusiastic non-reply, the man disappeared from his view, and suddenly the sound of heavy footsteps on stairs nearing him filled his ears. There was quiet for just a moment, until the man stepped into the pool of light that surrounded Fitz like a halo and his features were thrown into sharp relief.

“You’re not Garrett.” Fitz managed to mutter, and the man smiled villainously.

“I am not.”

Where John Garrett, in all of his professional headshots and personal photos, had been paunchy and wrinkled, this man was strong and tall, young and deadly. He wore a black leather jacket with ease, and staring into his cold dark eyes felt not unlike looking into the unforgiving gaze of a panther before it ripped you to shreds. His face twisted into a smile, and Fitz felt his stomach drop. “Wait, I know you.” He muttered, suddenly sure.

“Never had the pleasure.” He lied. 

“No, I-” Fitz closed his eyes and concentrated. He’d seen the man before, he knew it. Something about his sharp jawline and cleft chin were familiar. The memory surfaced suddenly, like a lightning strike, as Fitz recalled the first day he and Jemma had become official. He’d been floating on air as high as a bluejay, drunk on love, when he had collided--

“I walked into you.” Fitz realized. “You put the surveillance photos on my doorstep.” 

The cold smile in return was all the confirmation he needed. “I’m Grant Ward.” He drawled.

“You’ve been watching us. Me and Jemma.” Stammered Fitz. “Taking those photos and leaving notes-”

“Do you know why I’m here, Leopold? Is it alright if I call you Leopold?” Ward asked, sounding far too at ease. Fitz wondered how many other weak, defenseless scientists he had strung up before. 

“Leopold, I’m here because a man was brought back to life.” Ward stated, simply. “And I need to know how. And I should tell you… I’m prepared to take all means necessary to figure it out.” From his belt, Ward pulled out a sharp knife and though he couldn’t truly move, Fitz felt himself inwardly recoil and edge away from the sharp metal. 

“Have you ever heard of a man coming back to life?” Ward asked, raising the knife to his fingernails and picking dirt from underneath them.

It was a terribly pointed question, in Fitz’s opinion. But he tried not to crease his forehead in obvious confusion. Had he ever brought a man back to life? Other than his father, who had died years ago, the only person Fitz had really brought back was Jemma.

“His name was Phil Coulson.” Ward explained, unconcerned with Fitz’s inner turmoil. 

Realization dawned, and Fitz thought that for a moment, his secret powers might still be safe. He listened closely as the story of the GH-325 formula was explained to him from start to finish in Ward’s words, as if he’d never heard it before. Then, beginning to look agitated, Ward began to speak about a part of the story that Jemma had not already told Fitz, and his curiosity piqued. 

“They came back from the secret lab. Jemma Simmons, and two other scientists. And none of them spoke of the GH-325 formula. My bosses sent me in, and I posed as a security guard, and gathered intel. When I found the other two scientists . . . well, they had no idea what had happened. They were useless. But Jemma . . . she looked scared. She’d seen something, I knew she had. I went through her files and her research, but all of it had been wiped. I soon realized that she was talking to other labs, planning to quit her job. She was planning to sell. . . I knew it.”

Fitz shook his head, and Ward grinned. “I know what you’re thinking. ‘My Jemma would never do that!’” He raised his voice in a girly impression of Fitz’s. Then he deadpanned. “Wake up. This isn’t your candy cane childhood fantasy anymore. She was going to sell and make out like a bandit.”

Fitz just shook his head. He shook and shook and shook and tried to remember Jemma’s beautiful face as she smiled, and the clouds split over her head and the sun that rained down on her like liquid gold. She was brilliant, wonderful, the best thing that Fitz had ever known and-

“She would do it, you know. A smart, ambitious girl like her? She’d be a fool not to.” Ward stated, like he was reading Fitz’s mind and poisoning his thoughts. “I gotta say, I almost admired her for getting Garrett out of the way and taking it for herself. She had everyone fooled. Even you, it seems. But I had my orders from Von Strucker. If we couldn’t have it . . . I couldn’t let her sell it. So-”

“You killed her.” Fitz gasped, taking the words from Ward’s mouth a second before he spoke them. In a second, tears had risen to his eyes, but he didn’t know if he shook with rage or with grief. He mourned silently and tearfully for the future that this man had robbed Jemma of— and then came a rage so potent and undiluted and powerful that it filled every ounce of Fitz’s blood. It had been this man who had murdered Jemma Anne Simmons, at age twenty four years, six months, seven days, and thirty two minutes old. It was because of him that she would never again see her family and friends, because of him that she’d been forced to abandon her intellectual pursuits, her home, her country . . . it was because of him that Fitz couldn’t even touch her. Fitz’s forearms strained under the duct tape and his hands twisted into fists. 

“I’ll kill you.” Fitz promised, spitting his words. 

Ward almost looked apologetic. “Not from there.”

“Let me out.” Fitz growled. 

“No can do, buddy.” Ward smiled. “After all, I’ve got bigger plans for tonight.” He toyed with the gun at his hip, and traced the outline almost lovingly. 

“Jemma.” Fitz realized, ceasing his struggles and widening his eyes. “This is still about Jemma.”

“See,” Ward began to pace back and forth in front of Fitz’s chair. “When I saw her name in the paper, I knew it had to be the same Jemma Simmons. She had used the formula on herself. That meant that she had had an accomplice. It didn’t take long to figure out who that was.” Ward added, with a pointed look. 

“You must have injected her with the formula. Brought her back. And now, she’s probably planning to go public and sell the formula again. I can’t let that happen.” Ward said.

“So, what?” Fitz growled. “You’re just going to use me as bait? She won’t come.”

As if on cue, the unmistakable tread of light footsteps across the warehouse echoed. Ward’s eyes grew colder. “Let’s see, shall we?” Then he turned his attention from Fitz, and called out, “Jemma? Come out. We know you’re here.”

At first there was nothing. Then he saw her, just a shimmer of her, almost like a mirage in the heat of the desert. As she stepped into the light, the barrel of a gun came first, and the rest of her followed. Her eyes were dark and deadly, focused only on Ward. Fitz took a quick moment to revel in all of the beautiful forms that Jemma could take, startled and awed by her unwavering courage. When she wore bright colors, his heart glowed with her warmth. When she cried, it was if his own heart was being carved out of his chest as he watched. In a lab coat, she was professional and organized, and in her pyjamas she was soft and beautiful as a summer night. Now, with her hands steady and hair plaited down her back to keep it from her eyes, she looked downright terrifying. “Fitz, you alright?” Asked Jemma, not moving her glance from Ward.

“I’m fine.” He managed.

“I’ll get you out of here.” She promised him.

In the quiet unwelcome space in the back of his mind, he repeated the words she had told him earlier. Don’t make promises that you can’t keep. He squashed his doubts. “Sooner rather than later, yeah?” He said, meekly. 

She didn’t even crack a smile. She tightened her grip on her gun. “Grant Ward.”

“Jemma Simmons.” He nodded, looking unafraid. 

“Last time we met, I didn’t see your face. Just the pink plastic bag as you pulled it over my mouth.” She said. “Posed as a security guard in my lab. I should have known.”

“Put the gun down, Jemma.” He said, stepping forward. “We have so much to discuss.”

“Not a chance.”

Ward bit the inside of his lip, looking uncharacteristically thoughtful. Then, in one fluid movement, he had pulled his knife back out and had it pressed to Fitz’s throat, and Fitz was almost pushed back by the sheer suddenness of his actions. “Put the gun down.” He repeated, icily. 

Jemma’s lip trembled. Fitz just watched her wistfully, and remembered when they were seventeen and he had kissed her soft trembling lips, and how he had never thought that they would be separated. How naive he had been then, he chided himself. Ward pressed the tip of the knife into Fitz’s throat and he gasped, feeling the blood rise and begin to trickle down his neck like beads of sweat.

“Put it down.” Ward said. “I won’t ask again.”

Eyes closing for a fraction of a second, Fitz heard the clatter of metal on concrete and opened his eyes to see Jemma raising her hands in surrender. “Jemma-” Fitz stuttered.

“Now kick the gun over to me.”

She did. It scraped across the floor, and Ward smiled as he picked it up. From the shadows outside their pool of light, Ward pulled out another chair and pointed the gun at Jemma. “Sit.”

Her gaze was downright murderous as she lowered herself in the chair across the room from where Fitz sat, helpless. Ward went to her, finally letting go of Fitz’s neck, and soon Fitz could hear the ripping and pulling of more duct tape as Jemma was tied down. She hardly struggled, she just watched, her lips forming a tight line. 

“Now.” Ward said, cocking the gun. “You’re going to tell me about GH-325.”

Jemma smiled, but it didn’t reach her eyes. Ward raised the gun, and Jemma barely flinched. She wasn’t playing along with his game, and though his back was to Fitz, Fitz could tell that Ward was losing patience.

“Tell me.”

“Say please.” Jemma said, icily. 

A sigh ruffled the air. “Please.”

Fitz watched her smile. “No.”

Ward raised the gun and placed the barrel on her forehead. “You’ll tell me or I’ll cover the walls with your head.”

“No deal.” She said. “And killing me didn’t work last time, anyway.”

Howling, Ward lowered the gun and began to pace back and forth between them. He looked like a deranged animal. Then he seemed to have reached a decision within himself, and he pulled a vial of something out of his pockets. Jemma’s eyes widened when she saw it. “Impossible.”

“I went to the ruins of that lab. Shifted rocks for days.” Ward spat. “I found this clutched in Garrett’s hand. GH-325. So you must have duplicated it on site. You’ve got a stash somewhere-”

“You can’t use it!” Jemma’s face contorted in despair. 

“I know!” Ward bellowed. The sound echoed off the concrete floors and shipping containers. Fitz heard the clinking of metal chains as the wind blew. “I know.” He repeated, more softly and more deadly than before. 

Fitz looked at his wrist that was taped to the chair, and tried to pull. It hardly budged. Then he noted that the wooden arms were rough and unsanded, and there was one edge that was sticking out. Slowly and quietly, he began to move his wrist back and forth over the rough surface. He heard the first telltale signs of a rip, and smiled quietly to himself. 

“You know?” Jemma asked, frowning.

“I’m not a doctor. I don’t know how this stuff works.” He held up the vial. “But you do. You’ve had practice with it, years of research-”

“I won’t use it.” Jemma told him. “Especially not for you.”

“You will.” Ward promised. He left their sides for a moment, then the sound of metal scraping and wheels turning filled their ears. Wrists still working, Fitz and Jemma shared a glance of utter confusion. 

Then, wheeled into the light at an agonizing pace, was the twisted dead body of Dr. John Garrett. Ward was behind the wheelchair, pushing him into the center of their view. “Bring him back.” Ward instructed unkindly. 

Fitz and Jemma looked at each other again, both gobsmacked.


	13. A Deadly Resolution and a kiss

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hunter comes to the rescue, and chaos ensues. Enjoy the final plot chapter of this story!

The body smelled. It smelled like mold and feces and flies fluttered around his head like a giant disgusting halo. The skin was nearly translucent, and it was covered in unsightly boils and green bacteria. Fitz fought the urge to empty the contents of his stomach all over the cement floor-- of all the dead bodies that Fitz had seen since he was ten years old, this one was by far the most repulsive, and that was no small feat. 

“Is that-?” Jemma’s mouth hung open as disgust was written across her features. 

“Looks different now, doesn’t he?” Ward bared his teeth. “You dropped a mountain on top of him. It took me almost a month to dig him out.”

“God, why?” Jemma closed her eyes. “Some things should stay dead-”

“That’s very hypocritical,” Ward said, his mean eyes glinting, “coming from you.”

One wrist popped free of its constraints, and Fitz pulled it silently from the chair. He began pulling at the other side, and Ward didn’t even notice. He only had deadly eyes for Jemma.

“John was like a father to me.” Ward was explaining, like the words were sour. “When we found out about his cancer, I promised I would do anything to help him. He climbed ranks in S.H.I.E.L.D. looking for answers. I worked my way through Hydra. We thought together we could save him.”

Jemma listened closely as Fitz pulled his second arm free. Slowly, he bent down and started working on his legs. 

“Then you found the formula. Garrett knew he would need muscle like Hydra to move the formula around once he had it, so I worked with Von Strucker to make it happen. Von Strucker was a fool; he actually thought we were going to give it to him when we were done curing John’s cancer. He was planning to bring back some ancient Hydra founder, or something. But we were going to kill him when it was over.” Ward said, almost proudly. “Then you dropped a mountain on John. I went into your lab for answers and found nothing. Nothing. Garrett had told me that if he couldn’t have the serum, no one could. Plus, I was so angry at you for killing him that I put that bag over your head and watched you die.” Ward smiled, evilly. “I thought it was all over, and Von Strucker was so impressed with me he hired me to his inner circle.”

Jemma’s face paled as Ward told her the story of her murder. Fitz wanted to rip him limb from limb for hurting her, but instead Fitz redoubled his efforts to escape. He was getting close now. 

Ward closed his eyes. “Then I saw in the paper that you had come back to life. You had duplicated the serum somehow. That meant that death wasn’t final anymore—you could bring Garrett back. Cure him. Our plan could be set back in motion. So now you’re going to bring him back, give us your stock of GH-325 that you were planning to sell, and then I’ll let you go.”

Fitz had managed to get both his legs free while Ward was monologuing. He rose quietly from his chair and snuck quietly along the concrete with steady and silent feet. If Jemma saw him, her eyes didn’t betray it. She watched Ward like a bird of prey, calculating his every move like she was getting ready to swoop down and gauge his eyes out with her talons. In the semi-darkness, Fitz searched for a weapon. Hands closing around a heavy metal pipe, and heart decidedly sinking, he thought that beggars couldn’t be choosers, and inched back into the light. He thought he heard footsteps in the distance, but creeped along anyway, back into the steady pool of light where Ward was still talking. 

Poised over Ward’s head and trying not to breathe, Fitz caught Jemma’s eye and she nodded silently. Fitz was just about ready to bring the pipe down with all the force he could muster, when a thick British accent broke through the warehouse from above. 

“Not my friends, you wanker!” Hunter’s voice shocked Fitz so much that he dropped the pipe in surprise, and it clanked on the ground. 

Chaos ensued. Fitz ducked under Ward’s arm as he swung at Fitz in a violent anger, but Ward soon directed his attention to Hunter, who was swinging, Tarzan-style, from the metal chains that hung from the ceiling. In his hand, he held a gun pointed in Ward’s general direction, but he was flailing wildly and trying (without much success) to maintain his grip. Ward raised his own gun to shoot at Hunter, and Fitz pushed Ward hard in the chest to deflect the shot. It did very little; he was so strong, it was like hitting a brick wall. However, the bullet missed Hunter and hit a container in the shadows, ringing with an almighty bang. 

“Don’t worry, I’ve got this!” Hunter yelled, clearly not handling the situation. “Get Jemma!”

Ward shot again, and Hunter fired back, and soon Fitz was just ducking and trembling as he made his shaky way over to where Jemma was still tied up. Fitz reached out to pull her loose, and then she cried out, “Fitz, don’t touch me!” 

His hands froze about a millimeter from her skin. “Shit.” He said, shakily. “Almost forgot.”

“Can you imagine? Going out like that-”

And then suddenly there was a bang, and Fitz didn’t know if it was from Hunter’s gun or from Ward’s. All he knew was that the sharp, fiery pain that ripped through him a second later was the most painful thing that he’d ever felt in his whole life, and he cried out. 

“Fitz!” Jemma screamed. 

Fitz collapsed onto the floor and his stomach throbbed with every movement. He could feel the slick weight of his t-shirt as blood soaked it, flowing from his body more freely than he could have ever believed. There was another gunshot, but this time Fitz’s vision was growing increasingly blurrier, and he dazedly heard the thump of another body as it fell beside him. Hunter, lips bloodied red, was curled up and hazy on the floor. 

“I’m so sorry, mate.” Hunter slurred. “I tried to . . . save you.”

Fitz had no room in him for anything other than the pain he was feeling everywhere. It was icy cold and burning hot, expanding outwards from his stomach like a ripple through placid water, shaking every cell in his body with pure pain. His lips managed to mutter something, but he didn’t know what. Maybe it was gratitude for trying to save them, doomed as the attempt had been. Maybe it was thanks for being by Fitz’s side since he was twenty years old. Maybe it was nothing at all and he only mumbled. From very very far away, he could hear Jemma’s terrified screams and he saw in the corners of his view that Ward had cut her from the chair, and had brought her closer to the stinking dead body of Dr. Garrett. 

It was the end. Fitz could feel it in his bones as all the life drained out of him and pooled in red on the cement where he lay. He hadn’t known how much blood a human being really had until it was all on the floor around his body. “Hunter.” He croaked.

Hunter didn’t move.

Heart breaking, Fitz reached out and touched him. As he lost consciousness for the last time, the final thing he saw was Hunter’s eyes flash back open. Relief hit Fitz like a steam train at top speed. It was the last thing he felt before he died. 

\-----

Jemma gasped. Her vision was blurred with tears and her body was wracked with pain, but there was no denying it; Hunter had died, and Fitz had just brought him back. It was one thing to know that he had that power, but it was another entirely to see it happen. She watched Hunter rise with murder in his eyes and he strode forward quickly and pulled Ward off of her. Jemma watched with satisfaction as Ward’s eyes opened with unbridled shock, taking Hunter in.

“You should be dead.” Ward said, floundering in his disbelief. “Impossi-”

The rest of his sentence was cut short when Hunter punched him so hard in the jaw that it made Jemma’s teeth rattle. The other man didn’t collapse, but he stumbled back several feet and looked dazed. Slowly, still reeling from the punch, Ward raised his arms in front of him, and Hunter smiled, mirroring him. “Show me what you’ve got.” Hunter taunted, bouncing on his heels, full to the brim again with his maniac energy.

Jemma didn’t stay to watch the fight. Like a planet orbiting a star, she was ensnared in Fitz’s gravity and pulled to him with wobbly feet. She collapsed beside him, and it took all of her willpower not to grab him and flip him over. It was then that she saw the thick pool of blood around his stomach, sticking his shirt to his skin. His eyes, which had been so blue, were wide open and cold. 

“No.” She muttered, feeling her skin going numb. “No. No. No!”

Hearing her grief, Hunter turned to her, and the mistake cost him dearly. Ward’s next punch sent him toppling to the floor, and he slammed his shoulder into the concrete. There was a sick noise as it popped out of socket. Hunter winced with pain, and it was clear that the fight, though it had started with promise, was not going to swing in his favor. Ward stood above him, towering like a skyscraper, and smiled evilly. “Cut off one head-”

And then, like a TV screen placed on pause, Ward froze. His body went slack and he crumpled to the floor with a crash. It was a loud sound for someone who had moved so surely and so stealthily in life. Ward didn’t stir again. Hunter stood about two feet away, eyes wide, and the confusion on his face was as plain as day. Hunter hadn’t killed him. But Ward was dead nonetheless. How could it be possible?

With a look of equal parts dread and wonder, Hunter’s gaze turned to Fitz, laying on the ground, curled sideways, with one arm out across the floor and the other still clutched in his bloody T-shirt. Hunter remembered the feeling of being pulled back from something dark and empty, like surfacing from deep water. He remembered his first breath. Eyes filling, he looked at his watch and counted seconds. Exactly one minute had passed since he’d reawoken. 

With a gratefulness and grief so powerful that Hunter felt his insides twist, he looked to the girl of his friend’s dreams. She was kneeling by his side, her hands clutching her own arms to keep from touching him. Fitz had saved her, too. Saved Hunter. Saved them all, twice over. The small, curly, twitchy scientist that Hunter had met four years earlier and had thought so little of then, had just saved his life. Their lives. Hunter ran to Jemma’s side, where she was so wracked with sobs that she had barely noticed Ward’s death.

Hunter wrapped his arms around her shoulders to console her, but she shook it off. With tear tracks catching the light from the moon, she turned to him. “Save him.” She begged. 

“I can’t touch him now.” Hunter told her, tears leaking from his eyes too. “He saved my life.” 

“Well, neither can I!” She wailed, tears flowing freely down her cheeks. “We can’t just let him-”

She started physically choking on her grief. 

Hunter’s face tightened with guilt. “He saved us. Both of us. And his one minute rule killed Ward. And now we can’t-”

Jemma’s pain was undeniable. She put her hand to her stomach and cried, the sound filling the room and echoing off the walls. She sounded like a wounded animal, and her shoulders shook with such powerful sobs that it looked as though an earthquake was crumbling her from the inside out. Sometimes, half-formed sentences would rise to her lips, but then a fresh wave of grief would wash over her and the avalanche couldn’t be stopped. 

“Jemma-” Hunter tried to console her, touching her shoulder.

In a fit of grief, Jemma threw herself on top of Fitz’s body, and held him to her, clutching the fabric of his cardigan in an iron grip. She sobbed into his shoulder and felt her own tears run down his neck, grabbing him like a life-preserver in a sinking ship.

Hunter noticed first. “Jemma, you’re touching him.”

She gasped for breath, and rose up, slowly realizing it too. With trembling fingers, she paused, and her hand floated on the air above his skin like she was worried he would vanish like dust beneath her fingers. Then, hiccuping quietly, she moved and touched his face reverently, tracing the bridge of his nose and the curve of his lips, and the lines of his jaw with just the pad of her finger. Heartbreak and wonder shone in equal measure in her eyes as she watched herself touch him. Like a silent dam had broken inside of her, her lower lip trembled as she leaned forward and kissed his forehead and then his lips and then his eyelids, all the while shaking with such powerful sobs that her kisses were jerky and uncoordinated. It was a heartbreaking sight. 

Her kisses slowed and her tears dropped from her chin onto Fitz’s face. “I wish-” Then suddenly, she sat up and her eyes glowed with new purpose. “Hunter, go to Ward.”

He knew better than to ask. He stood and approached the fallen man, and knelt by his side. 

“He has the vial. GH-325.” Jemma instructed, hiccuping slightly.

“I thought you said-”

“I know what I said!” Jemma barked. “Bring it to me.”

He did. He handed her the tiny vial of blue liquid, and she uncapped the top to reveal a syringe. “Jemma? Do you know-?”

She didn’t bother responding. She stuck the needle into Fitz’s arm and pushed down the plunger. Even in the faint light, the blue color darkened Fitz’s veins as it filled his bloodstream. It was like mud flowing down a mountain after a rainstorm; soon, nearly all of his capillary veins ran with the same color. Jemma and Hunter, both too scared to hope, watched quietly. 

Then there was a faint flutter of an eyelid. A twitch of a finger. And then, with all of the brilliance and power of a pile of wood caught fire, Fitz’s eyes filled with life and Jemma fell back in love with the color blue. It took him a moment to get his bearings. “Wha-?” He began.

He didn’t finish. Jemma leaned down and kissed him with such an ardent passion that it would have made devils weep and atheists devout. She kissed him with every inch and every ounce of herself, pulling him closer by the jaw and kissing his upper lip, then his bottom lip, then everywhere she could reach without hardly stopping to breathe. She felt the cold concrete beneath her knees, and felt him struggle for a handhold as she pulled him up to her, but if she was being honest, the only thing in the world that mattered was him and the taste of him on her lips for the first time in seven years, eleven months, three weeks, nine days, eight hours, and twenty-seven minutes. Though the taste of him had been tainted by blood, and his cheeks were scratchy with stubble that he hadn’t been able to grow back then, the simple and heartfelt devotion in which his lips met hers was so eternally and completely Fitz that it felt like they had opened a portal to the past, and suddenly they were transported back to their quiet windowsill in the midlands of England, with only the streetlamps for company. She’d been younger then, smaller and less sure, but she’d loved him almost as fiercely and completely as she did now. Electricity danced up the skin of her arms as she slid her tongue along the seam of his lips, parting them and letting it slip inside. She ran her tongue across his and felt warmth flood the room from the ground up, like someone had slipped a heating plate underneath her. He hummed in surprise but didn’t pull back. He kissed her passionately, one hand raising weakly to weave itself in her hair and keeping her close. Jemma fought her smile. 

When she finally needed it, she pulled back just enough to let the air pass through, and she leaned her forehead against his, holding on to him tightly. She could see his heart pounding beneath his shirt, and almost laughed with giddy relief. 

“I love you.” She whispered, breathless both from their kisses and from a love so strong that it ached in her bones. She’d never said the words before, not to anyone, but she’d thought them loudly and passionately so many times about Fitz that it was hard to believe that the words hadn’t fallen out of her mouth out of sheer spite of being locked in for so long. She’d wanted to say them when he had brought her back. When he had cooked her soup. When they had made love on the floor of their living room without even touching each other. And now, with his hands stained red with blood and his lips swollen and parted from her kisses, she loved him. 

His mouth opened, then closed. He blinked. 

“I love you, Fitz.” She said again, hoping that he could feel it as it radiated off of her in waves. Her fingers clenched his shirt, frantically. “I love-”

“I love you too.” He answered, reverence shining in his gaze. “I love you, Jemma Simmons.”

She kissed him again and she could feel his lips tightening as he fought the same smile that was threatening to spill across her face as well. She kissed him and kissed him and kissed him until they were both breathing heavily, and Hunter was covering his eyes. 

“Christ, you two. Get a room.” He said, looking like he would have preferred death than to stay beside them one minute longer. 

“Hunter.” Fitz smiled, seeing him for the first time and pushing himself up. 

“I’m here mate. Thanks to you.” Hunter’s eyes twinkled. “But don’t expect me to kiss you.”

They laughed. All the worry, the stress, the fatigue . . . it all drained out of them as they laughed and clutched their stomachs with mirth. Jemma’s eyes filled with tears again, but this time they were full of joy. She leaned in to Hunter and kissed his cheek with a wide smile, then bent back down and captured Fitz’s lips in her own. It was brief, chaste, and sweet. She pulled back and looked at him.“Let’s get you out of here, yeah?”

Fitz nodded and she and Hunter heaved him up off the floor and carried him out, his legs dragging weakly on the concrete. As they left the warehouse, their dark silhouettes were imprinted upon a beautiful night sky that was dotted with millions of bright stars, and Jemma’s songbird laugh filled the empty space with light.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> That's it, folks! Tune in next week and I'll post the epilogue and if the 100th episode goes the way a lot of us are hoping it will, then this fic will finish at an apt time ;)


	14. The End

Rainwater pounded heavily on the roof, and with a worried glance skyward, Leopold James Fitz shifted his weight between his feet and clasped his hands in front of him to keep them from shaking. The Scottish storm had a contagiousness to it; it seemed to seep into his clothes and into the damp air itself, poisoning his thoughts with its deep thundering grey. He found himself fiddling with everything in sight: the cuffs of his jacket, the buttons on his shirt, and the gel in his hair. He was cold, exhausted, absolutely bloody starving, and the tips of his toes were frozen in shoes that pinched his feet.

“Relax, mate.” Hunter leaned into his side, and clasped him on the shoulder. “It’ll be fine.”

“You don’t know that.” Fitz responded, voicing the insecure thoughts that had been tap-dancing in the back of his mind all morning. “Maybe she’s not coming. Maybe she changed her mind-”

“She loves you.” Hunter assured him. “It’s cats and dogs out there, she’s just running late. She’ll be here.”

Fitz managed a nod, and tried to forget that his insides felt like the color brown and were roughly the texture of a three day old burrito. “Am I sweating?” Fitz hissed to Hunter with a high-pitched squeak.

“Little bit.” Hunter reached into his breast pocket and handed Fitz the blue handkerchief that Jemma had neatly folded into a square two nights before. “Here.”

“Thanks.” Fitz blotted his forehead, and kept his eyes glued to the vaulted wooden doors in front of him. “God, I feel like-”

Before Fitz could express another disastrous hyperbole about his nerves, the room filled with a gentle music that echoed off the stone with a rich hum. His trembling seemed to increase tenfold, and in a haze of nerves (and excitement, admittedly) he felt Hunter nudge his shoulder. 

“It’s time.” Hunter said. Even though Fitz didn’t look, he could hear Hunter’s smile and felt his eyes on the back of his head, waiting for a reaction to the sunbeam that was surely only seconds from walking through the door. 

Then the doors opened silently, and before he saw her he smelled the rain outside. He heard it pattering on the cobblestones outside the tiny church, he heard it hitting the kaleidoscope stained glass, and heard it plunking on the top of the car that would take them away from here once this was all over. He made out the grey skies and the green rolling hills in the distance, growing muddier and muddier by the second, and wondered why on Earth they had chosen Scotland for a wedding. Then he caught his first glimpse of her, and suddenly he wasn’t thinking anything at all. 

She was bright white, and looking at her, he was struck into a dumbfound silence that filled his ears with cotton and blinded everything else from his senses. Something golden, and wholly out of place on a drizzly Scottish morning in an ancient church, filled his veins. 

With her hair stuck to her head with rainwater, and the bottom of her skirts splattered in mud, Jemma Anne Simmons entered the church with a smile as bright as the Sun. Her dress was simple: pale white with a boat neckline and a sweeping back that trailed behind her as she walked, bringing light into the room with her every step. Her hair was pulled up off her shoulders, and dotted with baby’s breath, but some parts had fallen out of order in the trek from the car. Clutched in her hands was a bouquet of wildflowers in every color, matching the garlands that strung up the pews. Fitz didn’t notice any of it. His heart had stopped beating entirely, or perhaps it was beating too quickly to be registered, and his mouth opened in aghast admiration for the divine beauty before him who only had eyes for him. 

To his credit, Fitz was well-dressed too, but he paled in comparison to her. He had adamantly refused the kilt and dagger combination that Jemma had jokingly taunted him with, and was instead wearing a tuxedo of the lightest blue that brought out the wonderful deep color of his eyes. He wore a thin, dark blue tie and silver tie clips, and polished black shoes that caught the meager sunlight falling gracefully through the windows. He’d shaved too, the angles on his face looking more pronounced than they had since he was a teenager, and he’d whined after washing the shaving cream off his face that he looked like an overgrown baby. Jemma had disagreed vehemently and had kissed him so deeply to prove it that he almost believed her. And now, as much as Fitz couldn’t tear his eyes from Jemma, she seemed equally unable to stop grinning at him, and as she made her way closer, walking to the beat of the music, he felt his face brightening in a wide smile. 

She finally reached him, after what felt like an eternity. Extending her hand to him, he intertwined their fingers and squeezed them tightly. “Christ, Jemma. You look so beautiful.” He whispered, fearing that using his voice would betray how emotional he was becoming just looking at her. His eyes glittered like diamonds with love and undying passion. 

“So do you.” She winked. 

“Alright, alright.” Hunter interrupted them. “Let’s get this started then, shall we?”

In the end, the service went quickly. Fitz barely heard a single word that Hunter said about true love and overcoming curses and other waxed poetic mumbo-jumbo. The rest of the day, for him, was catalogued in touches: slipping the sparkling wedding band onto Jemma’s finger, and the the gem blinking at him like it was trying to flash him a smile. Her struggling to get his ring over his knuckle, and the small chuckles that they both managed when it was done. Looking into her eyes as best as he could while his vision blurred with tears, and the way his voice shook when he recited his vows. And finally, blissfully, the feeling of her lips on his as she pulled him in for the first kiss of their new life together.

Fitz and Jemma had kissed a million times and a million different ways by then, and by all accounts he should have been familiar with the way she felt against him-- even used to it. But he wasn’t, and he suspected that he never would be, even if his lips never left hers for another thousand years. When she kissed him it felt as powerful and awe-inspiring as a spiral galaxy colliding with another, igniting the interstellar matter in between them and creating a brand new wave of sparkling protostars. She was new beginnings and she was wonderful and she was eternal, and he kissed her and kissed her and kissed her. Far away, there were whoops and claps from an audience that didn’t concern him. The sweet slide of their lips together filled him to the brim with pure happiness, and after a moment it was hard to wipe the smile off of his face. His wife smiled beneath his lips. His wife.

The universe had tried its absolute darndest to keep them apart, throwing obstacle after obstacle in their way. It had cursed him, it had killed her, it had torn mountains to the ground-- but in the end, they had been stronger. As Leopold James Fitz broke apart from Jemma Anne Simmons, he felt like this moment had been twenty five years, three months, eighteen days, nine hours, seven minutes, and twelve seconds in the making and with a smile so bright that it hurt, he realized that he wouldn’t have changed a millisecond of it. Not for the world. With fingers laced together and an infinite future before them, Leopold James Fitz felt his heart come home.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> That’s all folks! Thanks for reading :)

**Author's Note:**

> Comments and kudos are much appreciated! Come hang out on tumblr @drdrdrfitzsimmons!


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